 The National Lottery (Irish: An Crannchur Náisiúnta) is the nationwide lottery that has operated in the Republic of Ireland since 1987. Created by the National Lottery Act, 1986 for the purpose of raising funds for deserving causes, it has been administered since its inception by An Post National Lottery Company (Irish: Comhlacht Chrannchur Naisiunta An Post), a subsidiary of Ireland's semi-state postal services provider, An Post. Offering games ranging from instant scratchcards to lottery drawings to television game shows, the National Lottery operates under a competitive bid licence granted by the Minister for Finance, who retains ultimate authority in overseeing the lottery's gaming operations and in distributing its proceeds.
The National Lottery's online and instant-ticket services are currently provided by a contractor, GTECH Ireland, a wholly owned subsidiary of GTECH Corp.
Background
Passed by the Oireachtas on 1986-07-15, the National Lottery Act invited competitive bids for a licence to run a national lottery in Ireland under the auspices of the Minister for Finance. The Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake, Rehab Lotteries, and An Post all entered the tender process in that year. An Post won the lottery licence, and has retained it since then.
The National Lottery Act stipulates that the lottery license must be reissued under a competitive bid process at least once every ten years. The current licence was granted to An Post National Lottery Company for the period 2002-01-01 until 2008-12-31. In 2006, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen extended the license for a further two years, until 2010-12-31. The Minister also has the statutory authority to revoke the license at any time.
Finances
Total National Lottery sales during 2006 were €679.1 million, up 10.2% on 2005. A total of €362.1 million was distributed as cash prizes. Operating costs in 2006 represented 14.6% of sales, or €99 million, which includes €42.1 million paid to retail agents in commission and bonuses.
Proceeds from the National Lottery are paid into the National Lottery Fund, an account kept at the Central Bank of Ireland, from which funds are distributed to private and public projects by the Minister for Finance. In 2006, the National Lottery raised €217.5 million for distribution to good causes, bringing the total raised since the inception of the lottery to €2.6 billion.
Games
The National Lottery began gaming operations on 1987-03-23, when it launched its first scratchcards. Since then, the National Lottery has expanded its repertoire of games to include Lotto drawings, television bingo, televised game shows, and participation in the transnational EuroMillions lottery. The Lotto family of games (Lotto, Lotto Plus, and Lotto 5-4-3-2-1) accounted for 53.3% of total sales in 2006, while instant scratchcard games accounted for 23% of sales.
All cash prizes won in National Lottery games are paid as tax-free lump sums. All prizes in the Lotto and EuroMillions family of games must be claimed within 90 days of the applicable drawing dates. No one under the age of 18 may purchase tickets for or claim prizes in any National Lottery game.
Lotto
Lotto, the National Lottery's flagship game, began in 1988 as a 6/36 lottery. Its matrix has been changed three times in its history, most recently to 6/45 in November 2006. The minimum play has always been two lines of six numbers.
Core Lotto sales have declined steadily in recent years, falling to €255.1 million in 2006, down from €262.6 million in 2005, €275.6 million in 2004, €279.7 million in 2003, €285.3 million in 2002, €305.8 million in 2001, and €314.9 million in 2000. However, the National Lottery believes that structural changes made to the Lotto game in November 2006 will reinvigorate players' interest and boost 2007 sales. The events of late July 2007, when over two-thirds of Irish adults bought tickets for a record-breaking €16 million rollover Lotto jackpot, gives credence to this prediction.
Lotto 6/36: 1988-1992
Lotto drawings began on Saturday, 1988-04-16, and have always been televised live by Ireland's public service broadcaster, Radio Telefis
Eireann. In Lotto's inaugural format, six numbered balls were drawn randomly from a lottery machine containing thirty-six balls. Players could win a share of a guaranteed £500,000 jackpot by matching all six of the drawn numbers, or win smaller prizes by matching four or five numbers. If no winning ticket was sold, the jackpot rolled over for the next draw. Drawings continued each Saturday night until 1990-05-30, when the National Lottery introduced an additional midweek Lotto draw on Wednesday nights.
In a 6/36 lottery, the odds of matching all six numbers and winning the jackpot are 1 in 1,947,792. At Lotto's initial cost of £0.50 for each six-number combination, all possible combinations could be purchased for £973,896, which left Lotto vulnerable to a brute force attack of the kind that happened when the jackpot reached £1.7 million for the May 1992 bank holiday draw: A 28-member Dublin-based syndicate, organized by 43-year-old Polish-Irish businessman Stefan Klincewicz, tried to buy up all possible combinations in an effort to win all possible prizes, including the jackpot. Klincewicz's team had spent six months marking combinations on almost a quarter of a million paper playslips (each of which has eight play panels).
The National Lottery tried to foil the plan in the days before the drawing by limiting the number of tickets any machine could sell, and by turning off the terminals Klincewicz's ticket purchasers were using heavily. Despite the National Lottery's efforts, the syndicate did manage to buy over 1.6 million combinations, spending an estimated £820,000 on tickets. It did have the winning numbers on the night, but two other winning tickets were sold, too, so the syndicate could claim only one-third of the jackpot, or £568,682. Match-5 and match-4 prizes brought the syndicate's total winnings to approximately £1,166,000, representing only a modest profit after expenses.
Klincewicz subsequently appeared on the television talk show Kenny Live and capitalized on his short-lived notoriety with a self-published lottery-system book entitled Win the Lotto.
Lotto 6/39: 1992-1994
To prevent a scheme such as Klincewicz's from happening again, the National Lottery changed Lotto to a 6/39 game later in 1992, raising the jackpot odds to 1 in 3,262,623. The first Lotto 6/39 drawing was held on 1992-08-22. To compensate for the longer jackpot odds, a "bonus number" was added to the drawings. Whereas players previously needed either a match-6, match-5, or match-4 to win, prizes were now also awarded for match-5+bonus, match-4+bonus, and match-3+bonus.
Lotto 6/42: 1994-2006
Lotto became a 6/42 game on 1994-09-24, which made the jackpot odds 1 in 5,245,786. The National Lottery made this change to generate bigger rollover jackpots, partly so that people living near the border with Northern Ireland would not forsake Lotto when the 6/49 British National Lottery began operations in November 1994. At the same time, the National Lottery introduced computer-generated "quick picks" as an alternative to marking numbers on paper playslips. Some smaller retailers now only offer the quick-pick option.
For draws beginning 1998-09-26, the National Lottery increased the cost of a line of Lotto from £0.50 to £0.75. At this time it also doubled the game's starting jackpot to £1 million and increased most of the game's smaller prizes by 50%.
With the introduction of the euro currency on 2002-01-01, the cost of a line of Lotto became €0.95, and the starting jackpot became €1.269 million (the euro equivalent of £1 million). For draws beginning 2002-09-01, the price of Lotto was rounded to €1 per line, and the starting jackpot was raised slightly to €1.35 million.
Lotto 6/45: 2006-
In November 2006, the National Lottery changed Lotto to a 6/45 game, raising the jackpot odds to 1 in 8,145,060. It also made the starting jackpot a guaranteed €2 million, increased the match 5+bonus prize to €25,000 (up from €12,000), introduced a €5 match-3 prize, and increased the price of a line of Lotto from €1 to €1.50, keeping the minimum play at two lines. The company said that the structural changes were designed to produce about twenty Lotto jackpots of €5 million and over each year, and at least one jackpot over €10 million. The first 6/45 draw was held on 2006-11-04.
The National Lottery also changed the presenter of its televised Lotto draw, replacing Ronan Collins, who had presented more than two thousand draws since 1988, with Laura Woods.
The Consumers’ Association of Ireland criticized the 50% increase in the price of Lotto, noting that the game's minimum play of €3 per ticket now makes it one of the world's most expensive lotteries. By comparison, EuroMillions can be played for €2; the British National Lottery can be played for £1 (€1.48); and the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries in the United States can be played for $1 (€0.73).
Lotto Plus
In 2000, the National Lottery introduced Lotto Plus as an add-on to the main Lotto game. For an extra £0.25 per line, players could enter their Lotto numbers in an additional 6/42 "Lotto Plus" drawing for a fixed, non-rolling jackpot of £250,000. The first Lotto Plus drawing took place on 2000-10-25.
In 2002, a second Lotto Plus drawing was added, the two extra drawings were named Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2, and the cost of Lotto Plus was raised to €0.50 per line. The jackpots were fixed at €300,000 and €200,000 respectively. The first drawings for Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 took place on 2002-09-01.
In November 2006, when Lotto adopted a 6/45 matrix, the Lotto Plus 1 and Lotto Plus 2 jackpots were raised to €350,000 and €250,000 respectively. The cost of Lotto Plus remained at €0.50 per line.
As with the main Lotto game, Lotto Plus players can win smaller cash prizes for match-5+bonus, match-5, match-4+bonus, match-4, and match-3+bonus. For a match-3 in Lotto Plus 1, the winner receives a €3 scratchcard; a match-3 in Lotto Plus 2 wins a €1 scratchcard.
Sales of Lotto Plus were €95.7 million in 2006, down from €103.6 million in 2005. Approximately 82% of Lotto players now choose the additional Lotto Plus option.
Lotto 5-4-3-2-1
Based around the main Lotto draw, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 was introduced in February 1997. It allows players to win prizes by correctly matching one, two, three, four, or five of the drawn numbers. The more numbers players try to match, the greater the prize. Players may base their choices either on a six-number game (excluding the bonus number) or on a seven-number game (including the bonus number). Somewhat of a niche game, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1 accounted for €11.2 million in sales in 2006, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year.
Record Lotto Jackpots
On 2007-07-28, after eleven rollovers, the Lotto's largest ever jackpot of €16,185,749 was won on a €4 quick-pick ticket sold in a Centra shop in the Farranree area of Cork city. The winners, Paul and Helen Cunningham, a married couple in their mid-fifties, collected their winnings at the National Lottery headquarters in Dublin on 2007-08-01, accompanied by their five children and extended family. The National Lottery estimated that two-thirds of the Irish adult population purchased tickets for the record-breaking draw.
The largest unclaimed Lotto jackpot is £2,713,334 (€3,445,934). The one winning ticket for the 2001-06-30 drawing was sold in Coolock, Dublin, but its holder failed to come forward before the ticket expired at the close of business on 2001-09-26.
November 1991 saw the largest number of winners for a single jackpot when twenty tickets shared a prize of £2,396,346, receiving £119,817 each.
The town of Skibbereen in County Cork has been dubbed the country's luckiest Lotto town. Ten jackpot-winning tickets have been sold there since the inception of Lotto.
EuroMillions
The National Lottery joined the transnational EuroMillions lottery in 2004, first participating in the drawing for Friday, 2004-10-08. Initially slow to take off in Ireland, the game saw a 40% increase in ticket sales after Dolores McNamara, a 45-year-old mother of six from Limerick, won a jackpot of €115,436,126 on 2005-07-31, making her the biggest individual winner in European lottery history.
On 2006-11-17, two Irish winners each received a 5% share of an unwon €183 million jackpot when it was divided under the draw's 12-week rollover rule among all twenty players who got five numbers and one lucky star. The winners received €9.6 million each, a sum which also included the standard EuroMillions match-5+1 prize. One winning ticket was purchased in Limerick and the other in Cork.
Irish sales of EuroMillions reached €145.3 million in 2006, an increase of 145.7% over 2005 sales of €59.1 million. With sales of Lotto games and scratchcards on the decline, EuroMillions has become a key driver of the National Lottery's revenue.
EuroMillions Plus
In June 2007, the National Lottery introduced EuroMillions Plus, an Ireland-only addition to the main EuroMillions game. For an extra €1 per line, players can enter their five main EuroMillions numbers in an additional draw for a fixed, non-rolling prize of €500,000. Players can also win fixed prizes of €2,000 for a match-4 and €20 for a match-3. The first EuroMillions Plus drawing was held on 2007-06-15, and the first person to collect the top prize from the new game was Mary Teresa Moore, a 70-year-old great-grandmother from County Limerick.
Telly Bingo
Telly Bingo was introduced in September 1999. Players buy tickets with 24 randomly generated numbers, and can win prizes by matching the numbers drawn on a lunchtime TV show in a variety of patterns, with a prize of €10,000 for a full house. An additional €10,000 Snowball prize goes to someone who achieves a full house on or before the 45th number drawn; if not won, the Snowball prize rolls over to the next draw. Telly Bingo sales amounted to €14.5 million in 2006, down from €18 million in 2005.
Instant Scratchcard Games
The National Lottery had a total of 22 scratchcard games on offer during 2006, ranging in price from €1 to €10, and offering instant cash prizes up to €100,000. Total sales of instant games amounted to €157.4 million in 2006, down from €160.6 million in the previous year. €97.6 million was paid out in prizes.
Game shows
The National Lottery funds the prize money for two televised game shows, Winning Streak, which started in September 1990, and Fame and Fortune, which began in June 1996. The production costs of the programmes are paid for by Radio Telefís Éireann. Contestants become eligible by getting three "lucky stars" on associated scratchcards and submitting them in special envelopes; each episode of Winning Streak or Fame and Fortune includes a televised drawing to select the following week's contestants. Featuring simplistic money-oriented games played before vigorous audience participation, these game shows paid out a total of €10 million in prizes during 2006.
At the end of 2006, Winning Streak held a Christmas special called "Win a Million," on which Brigid Foran, from Rosslare Harbour, County Wexford won the top prize of €1 million. Broadcast on
RTE One on New Year’s Eve, the show was watched by over half a million viewers.
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