Just after 19:00, every evening, Philippe Faye opens his email from the official national lottery that contains the Keno draw numbers that will finally tell him that he is a rich man. He holds his breath, but he doesn’t see his numbers most of the time. However, things changed on October 19th when he opened his email and discovered that his numbers had finally come in. To say that he was overjoyed would be an understatement. Philippe had netted a whopping €640,000 by spending a mere €20.
20 numbers are drawn daily in Keno, which are from one to 70 and anyone who matches between 2 and 10 of the numbers wins a prize. This time, the numbers that were drawn were unusually 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, going like this all the way till 20. Philippe couldn’t believe it, so he double-checked the numbers. It turned out to be true. Still not able to believe his luck, Philippe decided to call the hotline established for winners. At the other end of the line, a woman told Philippe that she couldn’t confirm his win at that time and even though a winning combination like that was unlikely, it wasn’t completely impossible.
She then asked him to visit the headquarters of the National Lottery the next morning where he would be able to confirm his win and his prize would be awarded to him. Understandably, Philippe couldn’t sleep all night because he couldn’t stop imagining the new life he would establish when he received his lottery winnings the next day.
He checked his email once more early next morning and he saw that there was a new message in his inbox from the National Lottery. He opened the email and discovered that there had been a technical error and the real numbers that were drawn in the previous night’s draw were not the ones that Philippe had played.
His heart sank because he realized that his dream of winning the €640,000 wouldn’t come to fruition. However, he didn’t remain disappointed for long and got quite angry, so he decided to keep the appointment he had made. As arranged, he arrived at the National Lottery headquarters and he was given in-person confirmation that an external IT provider had made a test that had generated the result of the draw. The only reason Philippe’s numbers came up in the results that were sent out was because of a human error.
It was confirmed by a spokesman for the National Lottery that there had been a technical issue. According to the spokesman, the error was concerned with the results display on their application, their website and the emails sent to the players and it lasted for more than an hour. However, the situation was rectified quickly. The spokesman said that there hadn’t been any error at the time of the draw. The error occurred later and so, players couldn’t demand a prize because a physical draw is the one that counts from a legal perspective.
