11 January: Lotteries

On 11 January 1569 The first state lottery in England was held. Lots were sold at the West Door of St Paul's Cathedral in London, at 10 shillings each; there were 40,000 for sale, and each lot could be subdivided into smaller units. Here are some things you might not know about lotteries.

1. The odds of winning a lottery jackpot are around 1 in 200 million. If you bought a lottery ticket every day for 255 years your chance of winning would only be one in 2,151.
2. That said, people do win, and some win more than once (a study by UK National Lottery conductors Camelot found that 68% of winners carry on playing the lottery). Joan R. Ginthe won the US lottery four times. She won $5.4 million. A decade later, she won $2 million, then two years after that she won $3 million. In the summer of 2010, she won a fourth $10 million jackpot. The odds of this happening was calculated at one in eighteen septillion. Guess what Ms Ginthe's day job was? A professor in mathematics with a PhD from Stanford University specialising in statistics. In the UK, a family from Tipton, West Midlands, has won three separate jackpots with a total value of £3.25 million, at odds of one in 350 billion.
3. In theory, there is an equal chance of any given lottery ball being drawn but in practice, some appear more often than others. According to a Telegraph article in 2014, the ball which had appeared most often in the first 20 years of the UK National Lottery was 38. The next five most commonly appearing numbers were 23, 31, 25, 43, 33 and 44. The least drawn number? 13. However, the numbers most commonly picked by punters are lower numbers, since people tend to pick their birthdays or memorable anniversaries.
4. Lottery balls are made from close cellular foam. Each set costs about £2,500. They are made by a firm in New Jersey, USA.
5. What do lottery jackpot winners do with the money? About 75% give money to their families: 66% to siblings, 57% to children and 51% to parents. 38% buy new homes, 24% of which will be in another country. Many travel, with 19% taking their first trip abroad ever. 7% buy motorhomes. On average, they'll buy 4.5 new cars. 44% will have blown the whole lot within 5 years.
6. About 48% of people carry on working, although they may find a new job or start a business. 32% of national lottery winners gain weight. But are they happy? 55% say they are, mostly because they no longer have to worry about money. For 43% it makes no difference, and 2% say they are less happy after their win.
7. Lotteries have been used in some parts of the world to modify behaviour. In Sweden, speed cameras not only take pictures of people who are speeding, but people who keep to the limit as well. The licence plates of the law abiding citizens are placed in a lottery, with the prize money funded by revenue from speeding fines. In China, the government incorporated a scratch-off lottery into the state-run receipt system, so more people would ask for receipts, preventing businesses from conveniently forgetting to declare their income. In India, people who volunteer to be sterilised are not only given money but their names go in a lottery to win televisions, motorcycles, food processors and cars.
8. In the UK, about 70% of the adult population play the lottery regularly. That's 32 million people. This number increases even more when there's a rollover. On January 6 1996, the first double rollover, 86% of the adult population bought lottery tickets.
9. The largest unclaimed prize was from the EuroMillions draw on June 8 2012. The prize was £63,837,543.60 and the ticket had been bought by someone in the Stevenage and Hitchin area.
10. In the UK the Lottery draw is a regular weekly fixture on TV. The first one in 1994 was hosted by Noel Edmonds and was watched by 22 million people. The show has only been cancelled three times - on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales; out of respect for the passing of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother; and on the first anniversary of 9/11.

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