National Lottery operator Allwyn is asking its 43,500 retail partners to prepare for a significant systems upgrade happening from 2 to 4 August.
It will mark the biggest technology update since 1994, in a bid to “transform core gaming and retail systems”.
The cutover will involve launching new terminal software, crucial back-end tech upgrades, and complex data migrations, including the transfer of tens of thousands of retailer records and millions of transactions.
When the technology updates take place from 2 to 4 August, National Lottery services will turn offline from 11pm on the Saturday night, preventing players from logging into their online accounts, buying draw tickets or claiming prizes – in-store or online – until late Monday morning.
Players will still be able to check results until systems go offline on Saturday and buy scratchcards in shops for the duration. They can also see the latest National Lottery draws and view the full results for the Saturday draws on The National Lottery’s YouTube channel.
Once services come back online on Monday, around 8,000 National Lottery retailers will switch over to new state-of-the-art lottery Wave terminals – which have already arrived in their stores. These would allow them to process player transactions quicker and provide them with more functionality, Allwyn said.
The remainder of National Lottery retailers will be using the new software on their existing terminal and will receive their new Wave terminal in the coming months.
Ahead of the cutover, Allwyn has asked retailers to take a number of actions to streamline and speed up the process as well as to prevent delays.
These include retailers keeping their terminal plugged in and powered on all weekend, to allow critical software updates to take place, and activating enough scratchcard stock to keep dispensers full until Monday.
Retailers can sign on to their terminal before 10am on Sunday morning to access their weekly invoice, but after they’ve done that, they should put the terminal cover in place to prevent anyone from accessing the terminal, Allwyn advised. The terminal cover can be found in the support pack, which will be sent to them.
On Monday, the way that all retailers sign on to their terminal will change, so they should make sure they have their new sign-on details to hand, which can also be found in their support pack.
It is expected that a small proportion of legacy in-store terminals may experience delays coming back up on Monday if certain upgrade processes were interrupted for various reasons. Allwyn said it had specialist teams standing by to get them back up and running as quickly as possible.
Most retailers who followed the guidance in their support pack would experience a smooth return to service, Allwyn said.
“These critical tech upgrades follow on from our continuous progress in modernising the National Lottery, which hasn’t had a major refresh since 2009,” said Allwyn director of operations Jenny Blogg.
“This includes introducing a fresh new look in our 43,500 retail partners with new stands, dispensers and signage, as well as rolling out state-of-the-art lottery terminals and a new in-store network provided by Vodafone.
“We’re very grateful for our retail partners’ continued support through these latest upgrades. We’ve been working hard to make sure retailers can get back up and running as quickly as possible after the weekend, so it’s really important that they follow the instructions in their support pack.
“While these significant updates will mean short-term disruption for players and our retail partners, they will allow us to deliver on our promise to bring new, exciting games to the National Lottery; a better player experience; and our commitment to double returns to good causes from £30m to £60m every week by the end of the 10-year licence.”
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