Singapore’s state-run online lottery and sports betting monopoly has confessed that its software ‘glitches’ are more widespread than originally reported.
Two weeks ago, Singapore Pools announced that ‘glitches’ in its online lottery software had prevented customers from winning prizes in its TOTO Quick Pick and Quick Pick System Roll options. On Friday, the company announced that two other products – iTOTO and telephone 4D Quick Pick Bets – had suffered their own glitches.
The original glitches meant that the number 49 was accidentally being omitted from online Quick Pick selections, so players lost out if that number appeared when the winning numbers were drawn.
Singapore Pools says affected customers will have their money refunded and be given a S$5 ‘token’ while customers who claimed prize winnings despite the glitch will have their winnings boosted by 50%. The company will also add S$500k to the prize pool for a TOTO draw in February.
The iTOTO glitch also involved the omission of the number 49 from tickets issued via the random number generator (RNG), affecting some 1% of total iTOTO sales. Affected customers will receive the same refund and token combo.
The telephone 4D Quick Pick Bets glitches were twofold; one omitted the numbers 0 and 9 from RNG-issued tickets, while another saw the system only generate unique digits for telephone 4D Quick Pick Roll Bets, which the company says was “not in line with the intended logic of the 4D game.”
The telephone 4D glitches affected a much smaller number of customers, representing only 0.0003% of total 4D sales. These customers will also receive the refund and token combo.
All the glitches are believed to have been caused by an October 2018 system update, and Singapore Pools assured its customers that it had rectified all the software glitches it had detected. Regardless, customers will likely suspect that further announcements of this kind may be forthcoming.
News of the original glitches prompted Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs to launch an inquiry into the matter, while the Singapore Totalizator Board convened a review panel to gauge the company’s response to these issues. Singapore Pools has pledged to fully cooperate with this regulatory probing.
Singapore Pools is the only locally approved online lottery and betting option following the city-state’s passage of the Remote Gambling Act in 2015.
