- Wednesday 30th October
The chat room was moderately busy tonight as yet again the BBC
refused to air the Extra draw, putting up a sorted-order ball caption
(not even accompanied by a video still of the balls in their
final resting places on the machine chute). As usual, the official
site was slow to put up the numbers, but first to display the full
results.
- Saturday 26th October
Unlike last Wednesday's rather frenetic action, tonight was relatively
calm, though there were a reasonable number of folks in the chat room to
witness the live TV show commentary and draw, which went without a hitch.
The official lottery site took "only" 30 minutes to put up the winning
numbers tonight and followed up with the full results about 15 minutes
later, beating both BBC teletext and Camelot's phone line.
- Wednesday 23rd October
Well, tonight was "full of incident" if nothing else. The
lottery TV show - complete with a double rollover and the
first ever Wednesday Thunderball draw - started almost 2
minutes early, so I thought "hey, they've allowed for the
3 live draws and will finish on time for once". Well, how
staggered was I when - thanks to an archaic and bonkers
Lottery Commission rule - they weren't allowed to air
3 live draws tonight and only showed a static caption of
the winning Extra numbers.
I complained to Camelot on the phone about this and my
complaint has been noted (and probably duly binned), but
the "fun" continued when my Dad texted me to say he'd
matched 5 numbers on the Lucky Dip ticket he'd bought -
turns out he netted a nice £2,486.
Getting back to full results, the official site was
first with the goodies about 40 minutes after the draws,
with BBC teletext second and Camelot phone line trailing
in last as usual.
- Tuesday 22nd October
Bought four more tickets for tomorrow's double rollover draw.
- Saturday 19th October
It was a fairly quiet chat room tonight, especially considering
it was a rollover draw. No problems with the commentary or
draw, with the TV show announcing at the end that next Wednesday's
draw would be a double rollover draw (only the 8th one to date).
The official lottery site was the quickest to the full results,
with BBC teletext about 10 minutes later and the phone line
trailing in way last, over 30 minutes after that.
Completed work on dealing with next week's first ever
Wednesday Thunderball draw -
the ticket sales, prize winners, winning numbers and ticket checker
sections have all been done. In fact, this might be the only site out
there right now that lets you check your tickets just against Wednesday
Thunderball draws (as well as Saturday only or Sat+Wed).
- Thursday 17th October
Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover.
- Wednesday 16th October
Annoyingly, my TV mag (and Sky Digital's EPG) made no indication that the
10.35pm lottery TV show was just a recording of a draw that took place
about 2.5 hours earlier. Hence, I was surprised that the numbers were
flashed up at half time in the dismal England game - yep, the show wasn't
aired live. I updated the pages and then went back to watch England play
their typical awful game and end up drawing 2-2.
- Saturday 12th October
England soccer team barely scraped past Slovakia (two jammy goals gave them
an undeserved 2-1 win) and the game pushed the lottery TV show back an
hour, allowing a few extra people to join in (i.e. the ones that often
turn up late for some reason). Shortly after the draw - which went OK in
the chat room - Camelot's official Web site basically ground to a halt.
It was taking 3 minutes to serve up a page, which is typical of its
recent performances on draw night (I complained to Camelot on their phone
line, not that they'll take any notice).
Because of this slowness, it was difficult to judge exactly when the
official site put up the full results, but it did appear to be a good
5-10 minutes after the fastest source tonight, BBC teletext. As usual,
the Camelot phone line dragged in last place.
- Wednesday 9th October
The "early" start time of 7.55pm fooled plenty of people
as usual as only a few early birds turned up in the chat
room for the live draw itself (a lot more turned up an
hour late, no doubt thinking the draw was just before 9.00pm).
Unsurprisingly, the official lottery site pulled its standard
stunt of failing to put up the winning numbers for a good 50
minutes and then putting up the full results only 5-10
minutes afterwards - making it both the slowest and fastest
sources of information in one evening (quite an impressive
feat that).
The Camelot phone line came in second place a good 10 minutes
after its own official site and BBC teletext was very sluggish,
only revealing the full results more than 90 minutes after
the draw.
- Tuesday 8th October
Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover.
- Saturday 5th October
The chat room was moderately quiet tonight, despite the show
being on at its (fairly) regular 7.30pm time. No problems with
the live TV show commentary and draw in the chat room, but this
time BBC teletext just about beat the official site to the full
results, with Camelot's phone line trailing in last place a good
20 minutes after the other two.
- Wednesday 2nd October
As usual, the "early" 7.55pm lottery TV show caught out most people, so
the chat room was fairly quiet for the draws and actually busier during the
hour following the draws. No problems tonight and as usual, the official
site was very slow to put up the winning numbers (45 minutes) and quite
fast to show the full results (only 5-10 minutes later !). They beat
BBC teletext, who seemed to be the reverse (fast with the winning numbers,
slow with the full results).
- Tuesday 1st October
Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover draw.
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