First Lotto draw

Press, 1 August 1987, Page 18

First Lotto draw

The first “live” . Lotto draw will screen on Two tonight (Saturday) at 8. Every Saturday night, each week of the year, the draw will take place giving New Zealanders the opportunity to win a first prize which the Lotto Commission confidently predicts will mean at least $250,000 a week. Where Lotto differs from other games is that participants choose their own six-digit number. Using the Australian experience as a guide, it

seems people choose all sorts of methods for determining their number — their age, number of children and letter box > number, for example, and then stick with that system. Television New Zealand has chosen two. presenters to introduce Lotto: Doug Harvey and Anne Wilson. i The security system for each draw is very involved and, the organisers say, foolproof. Each draw will be witnessed

by observers from the Department of Internal Affairs, the Lotto Commission and Treasury, and these three people will be seen briefly on screen during each draw. No one person has a key to open the secure area where the draw machine is housed — it takes two people with separate keys to gain access. Two sets of 40 numbered balls are available for each draw and it is not known until each Saturday night which set is to be used. Television New Zealand staff are not permitted to touch the equipment other than to set it in place on the studio floor. Should a power failure occur the draw can continue manually. Numbers already drawn naturally remain as part of the weekly winning sequence. It is expected that the weekly money pool available will frequently exceed $1,000,000 because of the jackpot system which operates when a weekly draw is not struck.

A recent draw on Channel 9, Sydney, totalled more than four million dollars and was struck by only II people.