A technical fault prevented players from buying tickets for Friday’s EuroMillions lottery draw online, National Lottery operator Camelot admitted over the weekend.
The fault, which occurred shortly before the draw, prevented customers from updating their online accounts, which they can use to buy tickets. It occurred just before the EuroMillions draw on Friday night, following what Camelot described as "unprecedented demand".
Camelot said in a statement that it suffered "an issue with the response times from the online banking systems, which meant some transactions were unable to be completed".
The National Lottery website is one of the biggest e-commerce sites in the UK by visitor volume, and supports the largest online lottery in the world.
In 2005, Camelot became one of the first UK companies to reach Maturity Level 2 on the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) standard.
At the time, then IT director Tim Newing said achieving the accreditation was "not only good news for us, it’s also good news for all National Lottery players. It’s further confirmation that they can have complete confidence when they play National Lottery games – regardless of whether they play at www.national-lottery.co.uk, through Play by Text, on Sky Active or by simply buying a ticket at their local retailer."
UPDATE: Paul Seligman, UK quality manager at FIS Software, has been in touch with some points about Camelot’s CMMI accreditation.
"1. CMMI is like an MOT, it’s a certification at a point in time.
2. It is valid for a maximum of 3 years, so 2005 is not too relevant now.
3. Level 2 is the first level you can reach, as every company, new or old, is automatically Level 1.
4. By mid 2006, some 50 UK companies were at Level 3, so i would have thought more than a few were at Level 2 (CMM/CMMI) in 2005.
5. There is no obvious connection between CMMi Level 2, which says you have reasonable processes in place in certain defined areas like Project Management, and having confidence in the security or reliability of an on-line site."
