Angry lotto sellers last Thursday besieged the offices of National Lottery Authority (NLA) following the shut down of the automated machines.

The machines have been shut down by Editec, a UK based company which was contracted to supply them through another company called Simnet Ghana Limited.

A letter chanced upon by BUSINESS GUIDE revealed that Editec UK Limited had threatened in June 2012 to shut down the computerized gaming system if its monthly services payments, which is outstanding for four months were not effected.

Simnet Ghana Limited, after some months, pursued the case legally and dragged the NLA to court over the non-payment of the monthly services of the automated system upon, which the court directed the Authority to pay 50 per cent of all outstanding invoiced sums.

In separate interviews with some of the Lotto Sellers, they said that automated machines went off on Wednesday, October 2012, a few hours after they had sold a few tickets on line to some of their clients.

Since the machines are loaded through pre-financing of the system by the lotto sellers, they said their capital had been looked up. “And that is a threat to our livelihood,” one of them said.

The Chairman of the Ghana Lotto Receivers Association, Daniel Mensah said “the livelihood of our members nationwide is at stake” and called on government to act now to forestall a total collapse of the NLA.