What's New On These Pages: September 2001

Next month: October 2001

• Saturday 15th September
  Like on Wednesday, it was extremely quiet in the chat room tonight, but at least the TV show commentary and draw went smoothly. I was the first to put up the full results, which were the opposite of what Camelot told me on Thursday, namely that the amount rolled over from Wednesday wasn't rounded down to the nearest £100,000 after all. Oh, I won £10 with my fourth ticket too...

• Thursday 13th September
  Camelot still didn't have the exact amount that was rolled over, but they applied a rule they'd done before - when a rollover and Super Draw occur on the same day, the rollover amount is added, but rounded down to the nearest £100,000.

• Wednesday 12th September
  It was very quiet in the chat room until the draws began and then there was a brief surge of entrants before it calmed down against post-draw. No problems with the live TV show commentary and draw (even if it was almost 5 minutes earlier than expected in order to get off air ASAP for yet another news bulletin about the US disaster).

  As is often the case, the full results were the most interesting thing of tonight's draw - not only did we get no main lottery jackpot winner (with the rollover crashing into Saturday's £20m Super Draw), but Camelot rather incompetently "lost" the exact jackpot amount that was rolled over. This was later amusingly repeated on both BBC and ITV teletext (neither had the figure), but quickly solved by me of course - my software that checks the prize tiers displays the expected prize if given a full set of tiers with known numbers of winners in every tier.

• Tuesday 11th September
  Bought two more tickets for Saturday's £20m Super Draw.

• Saturday 8th September
  The chat room was surprisingly quiet tonight as the usual suspects failed to turn up. The few people that came in were treated to a trouble-free TV commentary and draw, plus Camelot issued the full results some 50 minutes after the draw, which is good for them compared to recent performances. It enabled me to put up the full results before BBC and ITV teletext too.

• Wednesday 5th September
  Another England game won and another lottery show move (it was put back over an hour). Plenty of people in the room tonight for the TV show commentary and draw, which went fine. I was the first to put up the full results, even if Camelot made me sweat by taking 45 minutes to release them (leaving only 10 minutes before their lottery line closed !).

• Saturday 1st September
  The lottery show was moved back an hour because of Germany vs. England soccer match (which was won by England 5-1, amazingly). In fact, the lottery show still started later than the TV mags claimed - some 8 minutes late as BBC 1 milked the win for all it was worth.

  The show itself was mercifully less than 10 minutes long as they rattled through the three draws without a break (was this the first time there's not been a break between the Thunderball draw and the rest ?). No problems with the live commentary and draw, but Camelot were ludicrously slow to provide the full results (despite managing to announce that there were 3 main jackpot winners only some 3 minutes after it had taken place). About 70 minutes after the main draw had taken place, Camelot finally divulged the full results and I also duly beat ITV and BBC teletext to putting them up.

Previous month: August 2001

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