The Michigan Lottery launched a refreshed website Wednesday morning, but it didn't go as planned.
Users of the new MichiganLottery.com experienced slowdowns after the change-over from the old site, lottery spokesman Jeff Holyfield said.
"We were getting calls, emails... from players saying the website wasn't responding well," he said.
The project team took down the site for a couple minutes and tried to fix the issue, but it didn't immediately work. It then reverted to the old site so players could log on as usual.
"As near as we can tell, we've caused minimal disruption and inconvenience to our players," Holyfield said.
After the commotion, Lansing-based Michigan Lottery sent an email message Wednesday afternoon:
"Early today we launched a new website. Unfortunately, the new website did not meet your expectations or ours. While we work to provide you with a new site that meets your expectations, we have gone back to the previous version of our site for you to use. We apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused, and appreciate your patience while we work to bring you a website that you deserve."
Michigan Lottery is shifting from the contractor that previously ran its site, Southfield-based HelloWorld (which Dentsu Aegis Network purchased in December), to Ann Arbor-based Interaction Gaming LLC for its new site.
The updated site concept is mobile-first, because Michigan Lottery is seeing a growing number of users logging on from their smartphones and other mobile devices, Holyfield said. It's simpler with improved functionality, he added.
There isn't an estimate available yet for when the new website will go live again.
Some 720,000 players are registered to use Michigan Lottery's online services, he said.
Awe...
If at first you do not succeed try try again!
I wish that California would try a website to sell tickets.
I'm in SHOCK that California does not allow on-line purchases of lottery tickets. You know I'm a big advocate of it here in Kentucky. Once in a blue moon it has problems, but IGT takes care of it everytime. Last time they gave me $5 deposited into my account for being patient. It is called bonus bucks.
music*....I'll be playing your lottery in a couple of months while in Lake Tahoe--another post retirement trip!
I'm not sure if any state lottery has true Online sales because they don't sell tickets for all the same games players can purchase at lottery retailers (pick-3 and pick-4). Georgia sells 4 minute Keno tickets Online, but I can understand why the KY Lottery doesn't; the game was designed to help businesses and service clubs. Not sure how Online Keno sales effects it, but that's the only logical reason for not selling it Online like the Georgia Lottery does.
Both Georgia and KY sell lots of instant games Online and sales percentages are close to their scratch-offs.
Bleudog101, Wait for the Spring Thaw. Lake Tahoe is so beautiful and close to Reno, NV.
It's a comp flight/hotel/transportation so can't be changed. Went there in the winter before. Don't ski but went up the gondola with them and enjoyed seeing them skiing. Then the other time we went to Squaw Valley. Not too crazy about Reno, but there are good points there too.
I can play PB, MM, Lucky 4 Life and Cashball on-line. I think perhaps Keno here would be logistically hard to put on line, I don't know and don't care....don't play it anyway. Here is drawn every 4'. I don't know why they don't offer Pick 3 or Pick 4, maybe the infancy of the program is the reason.
The Michigan website has steadily gone down hill over the last 5 years and gets worse by the year.
One feature that some may not have noticed is the link on the page to the retailers information section that shows coming instant and rip-ticket games.
Also it mentions an obscene new option coming to the club keno games that you would have to be nuts to sucker for (though I am sure there are plenty of suckers!)
Like I said, the Georgia Lottery does offer Online wagers on their 4 minute Keno game and 31 instant games. KY offers 37 Online instant games with prices between 50 cents and $5 and many of them are the same games played in Georgia. Because they offer basically the same Online games, logistics can't be the problem and "infancy" can't be either.
If I were to guess, all drawn games will eventually be Online in both states along with online poker.
The Michigan Lottery changed their website to offer Online sales and just like in KY and Georgia, you can't buy pick-3 and pick-4 tickets Online but can buy tickets on the other drawn games. The Michigan players must really like playing Keno games because their lottery offers 7 keno games.
I also noticed that they ruined the past winning numbers interface. On the old website you could enter a range of dates and display the winning numbers for several draws. On the new website the interface is a calendar and you have to click on each date.
So if you missed a week of draws you can no longer see the whole week at a time and you have to click several times to get all seven days one at a time...I guess this was done to discourage people from buying multiple draw tickets. In Michigan you can buy up to 60 draws in advance but now they make you click on the draw results one at a time instead of allowing you to enter the entire date range!
Again, I can only assume they did this to discourage people from buying advanced draws.
Other states have way better instant ticket information like the odds at game start for each prize level. Michigan must not want you to know how bad the odds truly are because they give out as little information as possible on the scratchers.
I am sure I will notice other ways they made it worse but I have only been to the new page a handful of times.
I ABSOLUTELY HATE the new website for all of the reasons you just stated.