Speaking to The Malta Independent, John Katakis, the chief executive officer of Maltco Lotteries Ltd, the company that recently obtained the licence to operate lotteries which were previously run by the Public Lotto Department, said the new system was beneficial for both the receivers as well as the players.

On Thursday, the Saturday lotto and Wednesday’s Super Five lotto will be on-line and updated automatically. He said the new network is a multimedia-based technology operated through touch-screens.

When players go to the lotto booth, the numbers will be keyed in and sent to the central system. The receipt will be acknowledged and the ticket will be printed with the date and time of the draw, the booth where the ticket was purchased and other information, including a barcode for every ticket.

He said that thanks to this new network, the lotto receivers are not obliged to go to the department twice a week to make a reconciliation report.

The price for both lotteries will remain unchanged. “The only thing we are changing is the technology. The rest will remain the same. Now it is fully automatic and play can continue until 6.10pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays, an hour before the lottery is drawn,” he explained.

Another advantage of this new system is that if the lotto booth is still open after the numbers are drawn, prizes amounting to less than Lm1,500 per ticket can be collected there and then. Larger amounts can only be collected from the company’s offices in Lija.

He said the new system will also give each lotto receiver the facility to print out a report twice weekly.

When asked, Dr Katakis said the company had invested Lm12 million and provided all the equipment and other consumables used by the lotto receivers.

Meanwhile, on Monday Maltco Lotteries will be distributing Scratchers, the new scratch and win cards. The company will be issuing two series, with another series scheduled to be issued later on.

In reply to a question about the lotto receivers’ reaction to this change, Dr Katakis said the feedback was positive and it seemed that the lotto receivers were looking forward to this new era.

He said the lotto receivers had all the help they needed: there are people helping them with their marketing and making suggestions on how they can improve their booths. There is also a call centre for lotto receivers and players with queries. This number is 2388-3333.

Asked whether we will have a situation whereby lotto receivers remain open till late in the evening, Dr Katakis said it was up to them how to operate their business and the company was not setting any minimum or maximum number of hours of operation.