A NEW European
lottery with a possible top prize of £50 million that can be claimed
in Britain, France or Spain is to start next week.
Ten years ago people in Britain
were tempted by the chance of becoming a millionaire as the slogan
“It could be you” launched the first UK national lottery.
But in order to jolt the nation
from “jackpot fatigue”, Camelot, the national lottery operator, is
banking on wooing new punters to play EuroMillions with the slogan
“There’s something different about Fridays” in an advertisement to
be screened for the first time tonight.
The immediate difference is that
the public will pay more — £1.50 instead of £1 — to take their
chances against French and Spanish players. In France and Spain the
cost will be €2 (£1.37).
The draw will take place in Paris
on Friday nights, and for the first time the EuroMillions winning
numbers will be shown live on a commercial television network, Sky
One. Lottery organisers are confident that gamblers in Britain will
not be deterred by next week’s launch date of Friday 13.
Current lottery sales are more than
£85 million a week. Although this is £40 million a week higher than
the lottery launch in 1994, it is well down on the peak weekly
figure of £100 million in 1996.
Tickets for the new lottery will go
on sale at supermarkets, newsagents and petrol stations from
tomorrow. Camelot estimates that the first week’s jackpot will be
£10 million and that with a three-country pool of some 160 million
potential players the weekly average will rise to about £14 million.
With rollovers, however, there could be at least two or three
jackpots a year worth £50 million.
Even though the chances of winning
the new Euro jackpot are one in 76,279,360, compared with one in 14
million for the national lottery Lotto draw, Camelot insists that
the overall chance of winning a prize on EuroMillions is greater —
one in 24 compared with one in 54 for the Lotto — because there is a
wider range of prizes.
To win the jackpot players have to
match five main numbers from a choice of 50 plus two Lucky Star
numbers chosen from one to nine.
Then there are 11 other levels of
prize depending on the amount of tickets sold in the UK, France and
Spain each week. Under a £10 million jackpot the next prizes will
range down from £321,119 to £68,902; £6,430; £206.70; £137.80;
£96.50; £30.80; £20.10; £13.70; £7.90 and £6.70.
There is no tax payable on the
prize money by winners in the UK, France or Spain. Winners buying
tickets in the UK must have an address and bank account in Great
Britain to claim the jackpot prize, which will be paid in sterling.
Prizes in France and Spain will be paid in euros and tickets bought
on the continent must be claimed in the country of purchase. So
British holidaymakers on the French Riviera or the Costa del Sol
must either buy tickets in advance at home before travelling or buy
and claim any winnings in their resort. There is no minimum age
limit to buy a lottery ticket in France, but you must be aged over
16 to play in the UK and 18 in Spain.
Camelot insists that all the money
raised for good causes from ticket sales in the UK will stay in the
country. Any difference between the sterling/euro exchange rate will
be put in the prize-winning pool for the 11 lower rungs of the
prize.
As the €2 ticket in France and
Spain is worth £1.37 today, and with the UK ticket priced at £1.50,
the difference of 13p will be paid into the pool.
Dianne Thompson, chief executive of
Camelot, said: “For our players this is really a dynamic game. It
has been designed to create larger jackpots that will grow and grow
and grow. The chances of winning £30 million, £40 million or £50
million becomes a reality.”
She admitted that lottery games
launch to huge interest and then sales gently decline. But she said
that EuroMillions had been specifically designed to accept other
European countries so there will be fresh stream of new players
wishing to play. She said: “We predict sales will not decline but
will be buoyed by these new countries.”
The new game is expected to reduce
sales of Lotto tickets but Camelot anticipates that its total games
portfolio will be boosted. Camelot first conceived the idea for a
European lottery five years ago and has been finalising agreements
for the EuroMillions game for the past two years.
It has forged a partnership with
the Spanish state lottery company Loterías y Apuestas del Estado and
the French company La Française des Jeux, which is predominantly
state-owned.
A separate EuroMillions services
company, jointly owned by the three partners, was set up last year.
Each lottery company will put prize winnings in a joint pot each
week and this will be used to fund prizes.
The European Commission will have
no regulatory powers over the EuroMillions game. Regulation will be
by the National Lottery Commission in the UK, and the Ministries of
Finance in France and Spain.
IT'S AN ODDS WORLD
What happens when your number is up:
Winning the new European lottery
jackpot: one in 76,279,360.
Winning the current UK national
lottery Lotto: one in 14 million.
Being dealt a royal straight flush in
a game of poker (AKQJ10): one in 650,000.
Being struck by lightning in the UK
in any one year: one in 10 million.
Being hit by a meteor or asteroid in
any year: one in 700,000
Being murdered on a British street in
a year: one in 80,000
Dying on a transatlantic flight: one
in 23,000 crossings.
Being killed in a UK road accident:
one in 6,000.
Being flattened by a UK bus on the
way to buy a lottery ticket: one in three million.
Statistics from Robert Matthews, reader at Department of Physics,
Aston University
DEBATE
Will bigger prizes revive interest in the lottery?
Send your e-mails to
debate@thetimes.co.uk
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Camelot unveils pan-European
lottery
Thu 5 February, 2004 14:49
Source -
www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=452866§ion=news
LONDON (Reuters) - National
Lottery operator Camelot has unveiled a new pan-European
lottery promising jackpots as high as 50 million pounds.
The EuroMillions draw links
the British lottery with Francaise des Jeux of France and
Spain's Loterias y Apuestas del Estado. Tickets will go on
sale in the U.K. and France from February 7 and from
February 9 in Spain, with the first draw on February 13.
"The greater the number of
players, the bigger the jackpots," said Camelot's chief
executive Dianne Thompson.
Players will need to match
five main numbers from one to 50 and two "Lucky Star"
numbers from one to nine to win the jackpot, which Camelot
estimated would initially be £10 million, with an average
jackpot of £14 million.
Rollover jackpots could
take the total to as much as 50 million pounds.
Tickets will cost 1.5
pounds -- two euros in France and Spain -- with players
having a one in 24 chance of winning a prize.
Camelot said other European
countries are said to be interested and may join the scheme
in 2005 and 2006.
The draw for the lottery
will be shown on BSkyB's Sky One channel at 9 p.m. every
Friday, the first time a national lottery draw has been
shown on a British satellite channel.
Camelot also used the
occasion to announce a turnaround in the flagging fortunes
of the ten-year-old National Lottery, which has suffered in
recent years from waning public interest.
It said ticket sales had
remained stable at 1.1 billion pounds during each of the
last three quarters -- its best performance in four years.
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