National Lottery tickets now for sale on the Internet

by David Kelleher

The Lotto Department has extended its services to the Internet and punters will now be able to purchase National Lottery tickets online. The Department is doing so through e-shore, a subsidiary of Terranet Ltd, and will be using e-shore's secure servers.

Through this venture the department is also tackling the international market. The department's website is www.maltalotteries.com, and is powered by state-of-the-art e-commerce software hosted on e-shore servers operating within a 24x7 secure environment at Terranet's Network Operations Centre.

"The department of public lotto has been selling National Lottery tickets through the telephone and fax for quite some time, and we have now ported this service to a more convenient and efficient medium - the Internet," Darren J. Cassar, e-shore brand executive, said

"People can now buy tickets from the comfort of their own home or the office by simply logging on to the site, stating the number of tickets they would like to purchase, entering their credit card details and finally their address. The system also offers the facility of shipping to an address other than that of the purchaser, allowing the buyer to send their purchase as a gift," he added.

The service is aimed mainly at emigrants and other persons living outside of Malta. Secure credit card transactions are being processed through a direct line between the e-shore servers and Bank of Valletta. The security offered by the e-shore e-commerce set-up is world class and the systems used are the same as those used by international players such as Barclays, Lloyds, AT&T and Cable & Wireless.

"When we invested in our systems we decided that we did not want to compromise on technology or security. So we went for the best systems available today. This turned out to be a crucial decision, as today we are offering Internet commerce services not just to local companies, but also to international ones. We are very glad to have the Department of Public Lotto, a government department, as one of our first clients, and this goes to show that Malta is moving ahead on par with the rest of Europe in this field," Keith Fearne, CEO of Terranet Ltd said.

Mr Cassar also pointed out that e-shore has the capability to set up online stores and catalogues for all types of businesses, at affordable prices and within very short time frames.

"We are seeing a lot of interest from the local business community and will be announcing other partnerships with some major companies over the next weeks. With an estimated 40,000 Maltese having access to the Internet, local businesses are realising that unless they act quickly they are going to start losing out."

e-shore is operated by Terranet Ltd, a subsidiary of Maltacom plc.

Further information may be obtained by phoning 489600.