THE NATIONAL Lottery has been accused of misleading the public over the live broadcast of their Millionaire Raffle draw.
Lottery headquarters and RTÉ Radio One's Livelineprogramme fielded dozens of callers who were furious that the draw had already been made by the time the results were broadcast before the final night of the Rose of Tralee contest. Callers to Livelinesaid they were "gobsmacked" and "shocked" when they tuned into the broadcast from Tralee at 8.54pm on Tuesday.
National Lottery spokeswoman Paula McEvoy said it had never been its intention to mislead."I think people had a different expectation of the draw than what happened."
The Millionaire Raffle draw was a limited draw of 300,000 tickets at €20 each. The two top prizes were €1 million each, followed by five prizes of €100,000, with 532 raffle prizes in total ranging down to €500.
A National Lottery press release on August 15th states: "The first ever National Lottery Millionaire Raffle draw will take place in Tralee, Co Kerry, on Tuesday, 26 August 2008. Tune in to RTÉ 1 at 8:49pm when Derek Mooney will host the draw live from Denny Street in Tralee." However, the National Lottery website said the draw would take place at National Lottery headquarters on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 26th, and that is what happened. Callers to Livelinebelieved the draw would take place live on television.
"I'm dumbfounded. You're just sitting there waiting and then you realise that it has already been done," one caller said.
Callers also expressed incredulity that the winning tickets were bought in Tralee, where the Rose of Tralee took place and in Tipperary, where the winning Rose came from.
