Annual Report - Nebraska Lottery

serve the Lotto network.
Within four days, at least 97 percent of the Nebraska Lottery Lotto
retailer network was back on-line, but other interests nationwide affected
by the failure faced long delays.
In order to restore retailer communications, the technical service
staff of Intralot worked around the
clock. Supplemented by contract
technicians from around the nation,
crews worked more than 2,000 manhours
in an effort that required crews
to visit every one of more than 950
Nebraska Lottery Lotto retailers, facing
winter conditions including icy
roofs, as they redirected satellite dishes
and rerouted equipment.
Resulting from a rare satellite failure, the communication outage
disrupted sales of Nebraska Lottery Lotto games, Powerball, Nebraska
Pick 5 and 2by2.
The outage was made all the more dramatic by the Powerball jackpot
of $127 million for the December 1 drawing, and a jackpot Doubler
promotion in effect for Nebraska Pick 5.
Players seeking Powerball tickets for the December 1 drawing had
access at about 800 retailers statewide by that evening. The full network
was operational for the Saturday Powerball drawing, with an estimated
jackpot of $145 million.
Originally scheduled to end on November 30, the Nebraska Pick 5
Doubler promotion was extended to December 4. The promotion gave
players who won the Nebraska Pick 5 jackpot twice the advertised
amount of the jackpot for the drawing in which they won. During
November, the jackpot was won twice: November 11, $158,000 doubled
to $316,000; and November 20, $78,000 doubled to $156,000.
Sales of Powerball, Nebraska Pick 5 and 2by2 tickets that were disrupted
early in the week had rebounded significantly by the Wednesday
night drawings. Total Lotto sales for that single Wednesday exceeded
$389,000, which was about 70 percent higher than average Wednesday
sales for the previous two months. Analysis indicated that a combination
of the fast recovery effort mounted by technicians, and players
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