National Lottery (Ireland)

The National Lottery (Irish: An Crannchur Náisiúnta) is the state lottery of Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Republic of Ireland government passed the National Lottery Act, 1986 to help raise funds for good causes. The eligible causes are sport and recreation, health and welfare, national heritage and the arts, the Irish language, and the natural environment.

National Lottery gaming operations began in March 1987 with scratchcards, and the flagship drawing game Lotto began in March 1988. The National Lottery now operates three families of drawing games (Lotto, EuroMillions, and Daily Million), funds televised bingo and game shows, sells a wide range of scratchcards, and runs a number of Millionaire Raffles each year. National Lottery games are available online as well as through a network of over 3,700 retail agents nationwide.

By the end of 2013, the National Lottery had achieved over €12 billion in cumulative sales, had paid out €6.7 billion in prizes, and had raised €4.4 billion for the good causes it supports. In 2011, 2.2 million Irish people (64 percent of the adult population) reported playing National Lottery games, with 1.5 million (42 percent) reporting that they played weekly.

National lottery

National Lottery may refer to:

National lottery may also refer to:

South African National Lottery

The National Lottery is operated by Ithuba, to whom the licence was granted in 2015. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established in 2000.

Lottery tickets may be bought only by people of at least 18 years of age.

In the 2007 fiscal year transaction values totalled R3.972 billion, with an average of five million transactions per week. Lotto is the most popular type of gambling in South Africa

History

The National lottery was introduced to South Africa on 11 March 2000. At the time it was run by Uthingo.

After a marketing effort that aimed to reach 80 percent of South African homes directly more than 800,000 tickets were sold in the first day of availability Nearly R70 million worth of tickets were sold in the first three weeks of operation.

In October 2002 operator Uthingo suggested a daily lottery to supplement the weekly draw. The concept, called Keno, was rejected by the trade and industry ministry in March 2003. In November 2003 the Lotto Plus game was launched, acting as a supplementary weekly lottery available on the purchase of a primary lottery ticket, with an entry fee of R1.

Lotteries in the United States

In the United States, lotteries are run by 47 jurisdictions: 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Lotteries are subject to the laws of and operated independently by each jurisdiction, and there is no national lottery organization. However, consortiums of state lotteries jointly organize games spanning larger geographical footprints, which in turn, carry larger jackpots. Two major lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball, are both offered in nearly all jurisdictions that operate lotteries, and serve as de facto national lotteries.

History

Gambling as a generalization has roots in the United States and other English colonies as far back as the 1600s. Not every colony allowed gambling, however. The Massachusetts-Bay Colony, for example, did not allow cards, dice or gaming tables, even in private residences. In most colonies however, gambling was seen as a harmless distraction, as long as it was played in a gentlemanly manner.