Beer lottery leaves Kenyans bitter

Raising a celebratory glass has proved premature for more than 2,000 Kenyan beer drinkers who thought they had won a lottery...

Each found they had bottle-tops inscribed with 5774 - announced as the winning number in the beer promotion.

Crowds of "winners" rushed to the offices of organiser Kenya Breweries in the capital, Nairobi, each demanding the top prize of 20,000 Kenyan shillings ($260).

But the lottery has now been suspended amid suspicions of fraud and police used teargas to disperse the disappointed claimants.

Inquiries into the apparent mix-up of the winning number have been launched by the government and the brewery.

The government's Betting Control and Licensing Board said the number 5774 would remain withdrawn "until the investigations are complete", adding that all other winning numbers "remain valid".

It said its preliminary inquiry into the Pambazuko [Windfall] Kenya Promotion lottery "has led to an issue of suspected fraud".

Extra costs

A spokeswoman for Kenya Breweries parent company, East African Breweries, said the matter would be investigated "step-by-step".

"I can't tell exactly what has happened - that's something precisely that we are trying to find out," external affairs director Sheila Amdany told BBC News Online.

Ms Amdany declined to give any details about the cause of the possible mix-up.

The lottery was closed eight days early to allow Kenya Breweries to avoid extra costs of up to 40 million shillings ($530,000) due to the large number of claimants, Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported.