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Boledo Brouhaha On Sunday
posted (April 4, 2016)
If you are a boledo and lottery enthusiast, you are probably still bitter about what happened with this Sunday's Lottery draw. There was an uproar from residents out at the Magistrates Court for the drawing when one of 4 balls didn't pop up in the chamber. The residents demanded they release all the balls and start all over but, instead, one of the supervisors manually picked the ball for the 2nd digit. That infuriated the crowd even more and reports are that people went to erase the numbers on the chalkboard and someone even banged on the machine. Police had to be called out to calm the crowd. Today we spoke with Lottery Committee Secretary Lewin Samuels and he explained to us what happened on Sunday and also what the standard procedure is in cases a like these.

Lewin Samuels, Secretary, Lottery Committee
"Basically it was an unfortunate situation. What was reported to me is that whilst playing the lottery game, during the process of the first prize, the second ball did not popped up as per normal during the process of the first prize. So of 4 balls, we had 3 balls that came up; ball number 1,3 and 4. 3 and 4 which forms the winning lottery numbers - that the ending prize. The 4 did not popped up. But these machines which is the smart play machine, its computerized where it automatically selects the ball based on timing and for some unknown reason like anything else, you have a machine that malfunctions. The reason why we had a public unrest is because if they wanted to see the game be replayed. There was an incident before a couple weeks ago where the similar situation and the game was replayed, which was not the right thing to do because we already had some numbers drawn. So, the lottery clerk Ms. Denise arrived on the scene, too possession of situation and manually selected that second ball that did not popped. Because the machine works automatically and also we can do it manually. You have numbers that already been drawn and of 4 balls, 3 came out and the other ball that did not popped out was just manually selected. Unlike for you to go and play that game over, then you have two different sets of numbers - then you'll have more animosity."

As you heard, once balls have popped up in the chambers, they can't start the game over because it is unfair for those who probably have at least 2 numbers. Now you all may remember that this same thing happened a couple weeks ago and they did play the game over again. Samuels says that was an oversight and a bad decision on the supervisors part because the game can't be replayed once balls are already in the chamber. He reiterates that it was only a machine malfunction - nothing more and that next Sunday they will be using the double pick machine used for the nightly boledo draw until Brads contacts the machine suppliers in New Jersey and replaces those faulty machines.

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