Jackpot dreamers spent €750m on Lottery last year
While less than the total sales of €815m in 2009, the latest figure shows Irish people still harbour dreams of securing their future with a jackpot win.
More than 2.2m people continued to do the Lottery on a regular basis last year. In 2010, 267m individual transactions were handled and 854 individual draws managed.
The small decrease in sales was not reflected by a downturn on the odds of winning.
Players shared €419m or 54.4% of total sales in prizes, up from 53.8% in the previous year. A National Lottery spokesman said more than €1m was paid out every day in 2010.
The top Lotto jackpot win during the year was €16.7m, the second highest so far.
Overall there were 25 Lotto jackpot wins and 897 winners of prizes more than €10,000 during 2010.
There was a 150% increase in the number of people playing the Lottery online this year (15,000) compared to 2009 (6,000). Players are able to play Lotto, EuroMillions and instant win games over the internet.
The benefit of the strong sales last year was that the National Lottery raised €244m for good causes over the course of the 12 months. That means that since it was launched it has raised more than €3.6 billion.
Commenting on the results, Dermot Griffin, chief executive of the National Lottery, said: “We are very pleased to have raised close to €250m for good causes from sales of €772m. That represents another robust performance from the National Lottery, in the context of the many challenges presented by the economic environment.”
- Sales of €772 million in 2010.
- 2.2m people played National Lottery games regularly over the course of the year.
- Players shared winnings of €419.9m — an average of more than €1m won every day of the year.
- The top Lotto jackpot win during the year was €16.7m.
- Overall there were 25 Lotto jackpot wins and 897 winners of prizes more than €10,000 during 2010.
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