Lotto to cost more but odds get worse
Sunday, November 05, 2006 posted 04:11 PM EST
THE slogan of its new advertising campaign is “think bigger”, and that’s what the national lottery itself is doing by increasing the minimum charge from €2 to €3.
The price rise has been criticised by the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, which says a 50-235405504ncrease is “an extraordinary hike in anyone’s terms”.
The €3 ticket price puts Ireland’s lottery among the most expensive in Europe to play. Euromillions, whose jackpot will reach €150m this week, costs €2, while Britain’s national lottery is £1 (€1.50). Italy charges a minimum of €3, as does Spain’s El Gordo, whose annual Christmas lottery is the largest in the world.
“I know that a percentage of the lottery money goes towards good causes, but it has to be acknowledged that this is gambling,” Dermott Jewell, the Consumers’ Association chief executive, said yesterday.
“The lotto is now taking more from the disposable income level of the average consumer, which we think is already stretched enough. Gambling gives rise to a level of debt and that’s never positive.”
The price hike is part of an overhaul of the twice-weekly lotto draw, which has been suffering declining sales. The national lottery has raised the minimum jackpot to €2m from €1.3m, after market research revealed players thought the payouts weren’t big enough.
The chances of winning the jackpot have decreased to one in more than 8m after the lotto matrix was extended from picking six numbers out of 42 to six from 45. Lottery organisers now expect that only one draw in four or five will produce a winner, and 20 times a year the jackpot will roll over to €5m. Once a year it should reach €10m.
The cost of each play in the national lottery is €1.50, up from €1, but the minimum gamble is two panels.
“We were conscious of keeping the price increase to a minimum, and 50c is the most practical level to go to,” said Dermot Griffin, director of the national lottery.
“A lotto with bigger prizes has to move up in price. We have kept that to an absolute minimum. We have to move with the times. Every lottery has to change. The cost of the dream rises over time. Dreams get bigger, so you have to move with that.”
Irish lottery players’ dreams were certainly ratcheted up by last summer’s record win by Dolores McNamara from Limerick. She won €115m, the largest payout by Euromillions and one of the biggest lottery scoops ever.
The national lottery’s market research has found increased grumbling with the thinner pickings available from the Irish draw, where the jackpot has started at €1.3m and the biggest-yet win was €9.5m in 1996.
“Players were telling us that jackpot wins would just about buy you a house, whereas years ago winning the lottery meant you were made for life,” said Griffin. “When we started, if you became a lottery millionaire you could buy any house you wanted.”
Because the one to 42 matrix of numbers is relatively small, one in three Irish jackpots have been shared and syndicates in particular have been complaining that when top prizes are shared out, individual players don’t get much.
The international experience of lotteries, however, is that when jackpots roll over, players wait until they reach a high level before buying tickets. Griffin says the more exciting Irish game should boost sales, however. “Every jackpot will be €2m and that is a trigger point for people to play,” he said.
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