National Lottery to make major change on Saturday | Personal Finance | Finance
From 11pm on Saturday, January 24, until the end of Sunday, customers will be unable to log in, play games or access their accounts online. The temporary shutdown is part of planned work to improve the digital experience for players across the UK. A statement on the National Lottery’s website reads: “These are the most significant improvements since 2009 and will lay the foundations for us to deliver a better experience for you in the months and years ahead.” Despite the outage, the National Lottery has confirmed that key draws will continue as normal.
Both the Lotto and Thunderball draws will still take place from 8pm on Saturday, and players will be able to buy tickets in-store at the usual 43,500 National Lottery retailers nationwide.
For those wanting to check results during the downtime, winning numbers and prize breakdowns will be available on the National Lottery’s official YouTube channel and in retail outlets.
Any prizes of up to £500 on tickets bought in-store can also be claimed as usual from participating retailers.
The upgrade is being carried out by Allwyn, the operator of the National Lottery, which said players will notice several changes once the website and apps are back online.
These include a new payment screen and a simpler, more streamlined process for checking results, playing games and claiming prizes.
Allwyn said it will also introduce a number of new player protection measures as part of the update.
All new customers will be required to set personal deposit and spend limits when they sign up, while existing players will notice automatic logouts after 60 minutes of inactivity.
Instant win game players will also receive regular “reality check” reminders every 20 minutes.
To help customers adjust, Allwyn said videos and FAQs explaining the key changes will be available once the services are restored.
Players are being encouraged to plan ahead if they usually play online and to use retail outlets during the outage if they wish to enter draws or buy scratchcards over the weekend.
