SINGAPORE: After no jackpot winner emerged in the S$9.7 million Toto New Year Draw on Friday (Jan 5), punters held out hope for a bigger prize in the next draw as Singapore Pools had said on its website that the jackpot would be "snowballed to the next draw".

"Group 1 has no winner, and the prize amount of S$12,279,983 will be snowballed to the next draw," Singapore Pools initially wrote on its website.





But this turned out to be an error that was corrected about 15 minutes later.

It later updated the sentence to: "Group 1 has no winner, and the prize amount of S$12,279,983 has been cascaded to Group 2."



In response to queries from Channel NewsAsia, a Singapore Pools spokesperson said: "There was a brief technical glitch which was rectified quickly."

Several local media outlets and netizens, who were reporting off Singapore Pools' website, had repeated the error, causing some confusion over the prize money for the next draw.





"Group 1 has no winner, and the prize amount of S$12,279,983 will be snowballed to the next draw," Singapore Pools initially wrote on its website. (Image: Singapore Pools website)

It quickly corrected its mistake to: "Group 1 has no winner, and the prize amount of S$12,279,983 has been cascaded to Group 2." (Image: Singapore Pools website)

GROUP 2 WINNERS SHARE GRAND PRIZE

According to Singapore Pools' prize structure, the Group 1 prize money does not snowball beyond a fourth consecutive draw.

If there is no jackpot winner at the end of four consecutive draws, the spoils will be shared equally among the next prize group that has winners.

Jan 5's S$9.7 million jackpot had already been rolled over from three prior draws on Dec 25, Dec 28, and Jan 1, where there were no Group 1 prize winners. This meant that the jackpot should not be rolled over into the next draw, but cascaded down instead.

Singapore Pools clarified that each Group 2 winner shares the Group 1 prize in addition to the Group 2 prize. This works out to be S$13.86 million in total.

As a result, 19 winners in the Group 2 category walk away with a prize of S$729,761 each.

Interest was keen for Jan 5's New Year draw, with long queues forming outside Singapore Pools outlets islandwide early on Friday morning.

The bets, opened since Tuesday, closed on Friday at 9pm with the draw taking place at 9.30pm.

The winning numbers are: 03, 04, 13, 19, 23, 47, with 05 as the additional number.

The jackpot prize for the next draw on Jan 8 will be S$1 million.