A total of 12 lucky winners hit the jackpot in the latest draw for Taiwan's computerized public-welfare lottery to share approximately NT$524 million in prize money, TaipeiBank (
According to the bank, the sixth computerized lottery draw broke the world record for the highest number of transactions for a single draw, while also recording the fifth-highest amount in terms of turnover.
A total of 39.8 million computerized tickets were sold nationwide in only three days -- between Tuesday night and Friday evening -- raking in NT$1.99 billion for the state-sponsored lottery.
Each of the 12 lucky winners in the last issue will take home more than NT$43.7 million.
Although the odds of winning the jackpot are estimated at only one in 5.25 million, the low investment of NT$50 per ticket has set people's imaginations on fire, with many hoping to strike it rich.
Bank officials also explained yesterday morning that although the winning numbers were drawn the previous night, compiling the statistics on the winning tickets took much longer than expected due to the record number of ticket purchases and also because of an error relating to the bank's "traditional lottery" draw that forced the entire computer system to be shut down for two hours.
According to TaipeiBank officials, the computer system used to tally statistics on the geographical distribution of lottery winners was shut down after it was discovered that two of the bank's branches sold 4,300 tickets for the traditional lottery without registering them in the system.
The system was brought back online after several attempts to key in the numbers for those tickets failed because of computer security measures that prevent changes being made after the winning numbers for the traditional lottery are drawn, the officials said.
The bank said that holders of the 4,300 winning tickets should collect their money at Taipei Bank branches, not lottery retail stations.
In response to the lottery paper shortage that occurred at many lottery retail stations during the recent ticket-buying frenzy, bank officials said that they have made an emergency order of ticket paper from a printing company in Chicago.
The bank is capable of producing at least 100 million tickers during the Lunar New Year holiday, the officials said.
Meanwhile, some punters have questioned the fairness of the game after the number 39 appeared in the winning numbers for four draws in a row.
The bank officials said that the draw is impartial and that every numbered sphere in the lottery machine is identical.
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