Scratch card sales up to €3m a week

PEOPLE in Ireland are now spending around €3 million every week on scratch cards.

First launched by the National Lottery 15 years ago, scratch cards remain as popular as ever. Last year, punters spent just over €147 million on scratch cards - around 26% of the €559 million spent on all National Lottery competitions.

Just over 50% of all National Lottery sales, or €294 million, was returned in prizes.

Some €186 million was raised for beneficiary purposes, bringing the total amount raised by the National Lottery over the last 17 years to €2 billion.

National Lottery spokesperson Paula McEvoy said punters had a chance to share ae1 million prize fund with this season’s Winning Streak scratch card.

RTÉ personality of the year nominee Derek Mooney is back to present the TV game show. Each week for 16 weeks, starting on September 4 until the final draw on December 18, Derek will draw one three-star ticket on the game show.

The final group of 16 players will then go on to play in a knock-out series of Christmas shows to see who takes home the lion’s share of the €1 million fund on New Year’s Eve.

Every week on the TV game show, five players will have the chance to win the top prize of €500,000, with cars and holidays also up for grabs.

Punters can also instantly win €25,000 on scratch cards as well as lots of smaller cash prizes and the chance to appear on the weekly game show.

This season’s Winning Streak: Winner Takes All scratch card again contains the special phone play feature, which has proven to be very successful since it was first launched two years ago.

Punters can enter their scratch card number in a draw by calling a special number and each week one lucky player will win an Opel Astra car worth over €22,000 with two other players winning between €1,000 to €2,500 each.