Taiwan Lottery Co (
Its system crashed for four hours on Monday afternoon, affecting the operations of 1,400 lotto vendors nationwide, or about one-third of its distributors.
The malfunction occurred after the vending system was upgraded without sufficient testing procedures to ensure its stability, Taiwan Lottery chairman Oliver Shang (尚瑞強) said at a press conference yesterday.
The Ministry of Finance, which manages the lottery issuance, sternly expressed its dissatisfaction on Monday night over Taiwan Lottery's repeated system failures since the company started issuing lotto tickets in January.
The ministry also demanded that the firm replace its information team chief or even its president, Chang Ruu-tian (張汝恬), to correct the blunders.
"We admit our management practices are the problem and that they need an overhaul. We have requested that high-level executives of Intralot SA fly to Taiwan to provide some detailed trouble-shooting for two days," said Shang, who took over the chairmanship from Deng Yan-dun (鄧彥敦) on March 9.
Taiwan Lottery, a subsidiary of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (
After responsibilities are sorted out, Taiwan Lottery will hold a board meeting within two weeks to mete out punishment to those held accountable, some of whom may be transferred to new positions, Shang said.
The firm will also set aside NT$200 million (US$6 million) for marketing this year.
"We know it's useless to invest more in marketing if the system is not stabilized first. I guarantee, as chairman, that such problems will not occur again and that standard operating procedures will be established to ensure smooth operations," Shang said.
Taiwan Lottery is entrusted by Chinatrust Commercial Bank (
Taiwan Lottery statistics show that lotto ticket sales for the first quarter totaled NT$19.5 billion, with Big Lotto (
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