Lottery ticket terminals in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet not working due to network issue
Nunavummiut hoping to buy a lottery ticket in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet this week may be out of luck, as ticket terminals in both communities are out of service.
The Western Canada Lottery Corporation confirms that two terminals in Iqaluit and one in Rankin Inlet are not able to print new tickets.
The problem stems from work being done to upgrade the network that connects lottery terminals to the central computer system, says Kevin van Egdom, the lottery corporation's manager of communications.
"Our terminals need to connect to our system in order to generate tickets for your Lotto Max, Lotto 6/49 … sports games, Pick 3, those types of games," he said Monday.
"Any retailer may still be able to sell scratch and win tickets, but they may not be able to activate new tickets. So it affects quite a number of our games, so we're definitely hoping to have it back for them soon."
The Western Canada Lottery Corporation has more than 4,000 terminals across the Prairies and the territories, van Egdom says.
"Some of the terminals in the North, we've been able to convert to a wireless connection. These are not among those. It's not in a in an area that we can do wireless," he said.
"We had to do some technology upgrades to the terminals to connect to the new system and then connect into the old system in the meantime. There were some issues. So everything will be switched over by the end of this week."
People in Nunavut spend about $70,000 a week on lottery tickets, van Egdom estimates.
