The Samoa National Lotto has defended its bungled up pre-recording of the lotto draw last Saturday and threatened to ban critics from its Facebook page for “spreading the confusion”.

The Samoa National Lotto (S.N.L.) management on Monday issued a public notice, saying it needed to “clarify” issues raised by a Samoa Observer article in the Monday 11 April 2022 edition, on the pre-recorded draw mix-up last Saturday.

The S.N.L. said the Samoa Sportslotto draw No. 653 at 12.30pm last Saturday was pre-recorded and done in compliance with the current lockdown conditions including the 2pm business closure.

The draw was done under the supervision of the Police Ministry and recorded by their television S.N.L. marketing officers, according to the S.N.L. and it was for uploading to their Facebook page at 6.30pm on Saturday.

“When this [pre-recorded draw] was loaded onto our Facebook page, one of our previous draws on February 19, 2022 draw No. 646 momentarily played,” the S.N.L. public notice reads. “This was stopped immediately and the current draw to No. 653 of the 9 April 2022 continued loading.

“Unfortunately some Facebook users took a screenshot of the previous draw No. 646, editing this and reposting it to further confuse the public. 

“We advice our customers to please refer to our official Facebook page and website for the correct official draw results and draw screenings to avoid any further confusion and to call our office for further clarification.”

According to S.N.L. their lotto draw dates and numbers are clearly shown on each draw recording on their official Facebook page.

“We assure our customers that this was an inadvertent error, due to a momentary technical issue when uploading onto our page, and the correct draw was immediately shown and our customers saw that this was the same Samoa National Lotto Draw No. 653 as screened that evening on TV.”

The pre-recorded video mix-up last Saturday did not go unnoticed with a lot of lotto players criticising the S.N.L. management over the weekend on their official Facebook page.

However, on Monday the S.N.L. hit back at their social media critics and accused them of contributing to the “spread of this confusion by editing the screenshot they took…”

It then warned that due to the social media storm left in the aftermath of last Saturday’s pre-recorded video draw mixup, it will be left with no other choice but to start banning Facebook users whom it blamed for creating confusion online.

The Chief Executive Officer for the Samoa Gambling Authority (S.G.A.) Tuala Siaki Tuala did not respond to emails sent by the Samoa Observer following up on the matter. 

One of the concerns the public has is the confidentiality of the prerecorded draw lotto numbers being leaked by S.N.L. officials to the public prior to the results being officially released and televised. 

The “technical issue” that the S.N.L. public notice made reference to triggered a lot of criticism from lotto players, who questioned the new changes in how the lotto draw is done.