Lotto buzz sweeps town despite RTÉ numbers blunder

RTÉ chiefs will be hoping Ireland’s newest Lotto millionaire has not thrown away their winning ticket after watching their live broadcast on Saturday night.

The state broadcaster was forced to rectify a huge howler on air, after broadcasting the wrong numbers for two draws, including the main Lotto results.

Christmas, meanwhile, came a week early to the Tipperary town of Newport where locals are hoping the owner of the €4.8 million Lotto ticket is one of their own. Word spread like wildfire on Saturday night that Tom and Brenda Ryan’s Centra shop sold the €4 QuickPick sometime earlier in the day.

“About 90% of our business is local so we’re really hoping it’s someone from Newport, there’s a big buzz around the town. I’ve checked my own ticket four times already, but I’m afraid the numbers just aren’t changing,” said assistant manager Patrick Ryan.

“It’s a very lucky shop. We’re open two years last week, and we sold a €350,000 Lotto Plus 1 winner in summer 2010 and a ticket bought here won €10,000 in Telly Bingo a few weeks ago,” he said.

Lotto headquarters confirmed the winning ticket for Saturday night’s colossal €4,817,816 jackpot, was bought at Ryan’s Centra.

But bumbling producers of Saturday night’s Lotto draw managed to portray the incorrect “winning” numbers for two draws on the graphic immediately after the live programme.

Frantic programmers quickly spotted the mistake and, an hour later, before the main evening news on RTE1, rectified the error with a brief broadcast of the correct graphic. Two further broadcasts, containing an apology and the correct numbers, were made before midnight on Saturday.

Before the correct graphic was screened in the three later transmissions, the station’s continuity announcer said: “On this evening’s live Lotto draw, the closing graphic displayed the Lotto and Lotto Plus 2 numbers incorrectly.”

An RTÉ spokeswoman said yesterday the blunder was being investigated by programme chiefs.

“It was a technical error in the studio. But the correct numbers were transmitted three times after that, once at 21.20, at 21.50 and 23.15.” The winning numbers were 3, 10, 24, 26, 32, 44 and 6.

A Midlands punter won the €350,000 Lotto Plus 1 draw. There was no winner of the Lotto Plus 2, which had a jackpot of €250,000.