Technical error ends man's €640,000 lottery dream

Every evening, just after 19.00, Philippe Fays holds his breath when he checks to see if the official national lottery email containing the numbers of the Keno draw will announce that he is now a rich man. Most of the time, it doesn’t. But on 19 October, he opened the email to see that his numbers, remarkably, had come in.

In that moment, Phillipe was overjoyed, of course. For a total bet of €20, he had netted €640,000. Keno draws 20 numbers daily, from one to 70, with prizes for anyone matching between two and 10 of the numbers. 

The numbers drawn this time, unusually, were 1, 2, 3, 4 - all the way up to 20. He checked the numbers and then checked again. It was correct. Hardly able to believe his luck, Phillipe phoned the hotline for winners. A woman at the other end of the line told him that she could not confirm his win at that time and that the winning combination was unlikely but not impossible. She then suggested he should show up the next morning at the headquarters of the National Lottery where his win would be confirmed, and there he would be awarded his money.

Philippe understandably had a sleepless night, imagining a new life with the lottery winnings he would receive the following day. Early the next morning, he checked his email again to see that there was a new message from the National Lottery in his inbox. His heart sank when he read the message: the email announced that there had been a technical error. The real numbers for the previous night’s draw were nothing like those that Philippe played. In that moment, his dream died. Goodbye €640,000 euros.

Disappointment turned to anger, and Philippe decided to keep the appointment made for him. He arrived at the National Lottery headquarters as arranged only for it to be confirmed in person that the result of the draw had been generated in a test made by an external IT provider. A human error was responsible for his numbers coming up in the digital results sent out to players.

A spokesman for the National Lottery confirmed that there had been a technical problem. "The error lasted for more than an hour,” the spokesman said. “It concerned the display of the results on our application, and on our website but also in our emails sent. We quickly corrected the situation.”

Since 2019, the Keno draw, among others, has been done publicly, in Place De Brouckèrein Brussels. A bailiff is present to check the correctness of the selection of winning balls. “On 19 October, there was no error at the time of the draw,” the National Lottery spokesman added. “The technical error came later. There is therefore no reason for the players, who feel aggrieved, to demand a sum. What counts from a legal point of view is the physical draw.”

According to Audrey Van Hamme of Test-Achats magazine: "The error can be upheld in some cases, provided that certain conditions are met: it is necessary to prove that the error was inevitable, that the usual precautions were put in place. It must also be shown that the draw was successfully made under the prescribed conditions." In other words, the National Lottery must argue and explain what happened with concrete evidence.

As well as Philippe Fays, about 20 other people have since come forward to complain to the National Lottery about the error and the sudden end of their dreams.