The National Lottery said its website went down on Wednesday night for several hours as part of a scheduled break in service to accommodate the switch to a new playing format.

Advanced notices put out by the operator, Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), appear to have escaped players, with many complaining they could not get the results of Wednesday’s draw.

The company said the website was taken down at 10pm for planned maintenance, which lasted until 6.30am yesterday.

“Users were notified in advance, including an automatic response to any players who tried to purchase tickets after the last draw of Lotto 6/45 [six balls drawn out of 45] closed at 7.45pm which informed them to try again in the morning,” a spokeswoman said.

“This remained in place until the website switched to a maintenance page at 10pm,” she said.

The results of Wednesday's draw were available throughout the night on Aertel, RTÉ and via other news outlets, she added.

Outages

The operator, which took over the running of the lottery franchise last November, has been under fire for a series of outages and technical mishaps, the worst of which resulted in the cancellation of a draw for the first time, in February.

Tomorrow evening’s draw will be the first to incorporate a series of changes announced by the operator last month.

For the first time, players will choose from 47 numbers instead of 45, which pushes the odds of scooping the jackpot out to nearly 11 million to one. And the price of a minimum two-line play will rise from €3 to €4.

Overhaul

The changes represent the first major overhaul of the franchise since 2006 and come in the wake of the Government’s sale of the franchise to a private operator.

PLI insists they are long overdue and will deliver bigger jackpots, which typically result in a bounce in sales, to the benefit of all stakeholders, including charitable causes.

It also says the changes will provide enhanced payouts for a number of smaller prizes, including €100,000 for matching five numbers and the bonus ball, and a prize for matching two numbers plus the bonus ball.