60 Fun Facts About Lottery

The earliest recorded signs of a lottery are keno slips from which Chinese dynasty?

The slips date to between 205 and 187 BC, and the money is thought to have helped fund projects such as the Great Wall.

The English word 'lottery' comes from a Dutch word meaning what?

Lotteries in the Low Countries in the 1400s raised money for town walls and the poor, and were hailed as a painless form of taxation.

Which country's state lottery, running since 1726, is the oldest still in operation?

Fifteenth-century Low Countries towns already used lotteries to fund town walls and help the poor, and hailed them as painless taxation.

Modern lotto descends from betting in which Italian city on which five of ninety council members would be drawn?

When bettors wanted more than two draws a year, they swapped the candidates' names for numbers and modern lotto was born.

Which Roman emperor ran the earliest recorded lottery that sold tickets, to fund repairs in Rome?

Earlier Roman 'lotteries' were just dinner-party gift draws where every guest won a prize such as fancy dinnerware.

Which English monarch chartered the first recorded official English lottery in 1566?

Every one of the 400,000 tickets won something, and each cost 10 shillings, roughly three weeks' wages for an ordinary citizen.

What unusual perk did every ticket-holder in England's first official lottery, drawn in 1569, receive?

The exemption did not cover piracy, murder, felonies or treason; the money went to rebuilding ports and ships for the royal fleet.

A 1612 English lottery authorized by James I raised money to support which American settlement?

The Virginia Company of London used the proceeds to establish settlers in the first permanent English colony in America.

Which two Ivy League universities were founded in the 1740s with money raised by lotteries?

The University of Pennsylvania followed with the Academy Lottery in 1755; more than 200 lotteries were sanctioned in the colonies between 1744 and 1776.

Benjamin Franklin organized a lottery to buy what for the defense of Philadelphia?

Some of these colonial lotteries paid out prizes in Spanish 'pieces of eight'.

Roughly what did a ticket signed by George Washington from his failed 1768 Mountain Road Lottery fetch in 2007?

Washington also managed Bernard Moore's 1769 'Slave Lottery', which advertised land and enslaved people as prizes in the Virginia Gazette.

Which Frenchman famous for his memoirs helped launch the profitable French state Loterie of 1757?

He argued the case to Madame de Pompadour and the mathematician d'Alembert; the lottery was created to fund the École militaire.

A company chartered in 1868 ran the only legal US lottery and became a byword for corruption. Which state hosted it?

Former Confederate generals P.G.T. Beauregard and Jubal Early were paid handsomely to preside over the drawings and lend it credibility.

Which US state launched the first modern state-run lottery in the contiguous United States, in 1964?

To dodge federal anti-lottery laws, the winning numbers were tied to horse races at Rockingham Park and tickets were sold mostly in state liquor stores.

Where was the first modern government-run lottery under the US flag established, in 1934?

Thirty years passed before any state followed; today 45 states and three territories run lotteries.

Which five US states do not have a state lottery?

Nevada's absence is the surprising one: its casino industry has long opposed a state lottery.

Powerball was born in 1992 as a rebrand of which earlier multi-state game?

It was the first lottery to use two drums, an idea suggested by Steve Caputo of the Oregon Lottery and later copied by Mega Millions and EuroMillions.

In Powerball, five white balls are drawn from a pool of how many numbers?

The red Powerball comes from a separate pool of 26, and each play costs two dollars.

What are the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot on a single play?

Mega Millions is even harder at about 1 in 302.6 million, and Italy's SuperEnalotto is 1 in 622 million.

The record $2.04 billion Powerball ticket of November 2022 was sold in which California town?

Winner Edwin Castro took a lump sum of $997.6 million; Joe's Service Center, which sold the ticket, got a $1 million bonus.

Which state's lottery admitted responsibility for delaying the record $2.04 billion Powerball drawing by a day?

A technical problem with its communication system held up the security protocols; the draw finally happened at 8:59 the next morning.

The then-record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot of January 2016 was split between how many tickets?

They were sold in Chino Hills, California; Melbourne Beach, Florida; and Munford, Tennessee, and each was worth $528.8 million.

Where are Powerball drawings held?

Through 2008 they were held in West Des Moines, hosted by Iowa radio personality Mike Pace.

Mega Millions launched in 1996 under what name?

Its logo still carries six stars for the six founding states: Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Massachusetts and Virginia.

Mega Millions' add-on that multiplies non-jackpot prizes is called what?

It began as a Texas-only option in 2003, and Texas still owns the trademark; California is the one state that never offered it.

The record $1.602 billion Mega Millions ticket of August 2023 was bought at a Publix in which state?

The winner chose the cash option of $794.2 million.

Where are Mega Millions drawings held?

They take place at the studios of WSB-TV, supervised by the Georgia Lottery, on Tuesday and Friday nights.

Who presented the television programme for the first UK National Lottery draw on 19 November 1994?

The first numbers were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22 with bonus 10, and seven winners shared a jackpot of just under £5.9 million.

Which company ran the UK National Lottery from its 1994 launch until 2024?

Allwyn Entertainment, part of the Czech KKCG group, took over on 1 February 2024.

The UK's original Lotto draw machines were named after which legend's characters?

Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere came first; Guinevere is now on display at the Science Museum in London.

In 2015 the UK Lotto increased its pool of numbers from 49 to what?

The change made the jackpot far harder to hit and added a 'match 2' prize of a free Lucky Dip.

Roughly what share of UK National Lottery ticket money goes to 'good causes'?

Around 53% goes to prizes and 12% to the government as lottery duty; the operator keeps just 1% as profit.

Since April 2021, how old must you be to buy a UK National Lottery ticket?

For its first 27 years, 16-year-olds could play both draw games and scratchcards.

EuroMillions requires five main numbers plus two of what?

The Lucky Star machine is a Ryo Catteau 'Pâquerette' model; enlarging the star pool from 11 to 12 in 2016 pushed the odds past 1 in 139 million.

In which city are EuroMillions draws held?

The first draw was there on Friday 13 February 2004; the machines are made by French manufacturer Ryo Catteau.

Which three countries launched EuroMillions in February 2004?

Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Switzerland joined for the 8 October 2004 draw.

Spain's giant Christmas lottery is drawn on which date every year?

Its first prize is nicknamed El Gordo, 'the fat one', and by total payout it is considered the biggest lottery draw in the world.

Who announces the numbers and prizes in Spain's Christmas lottery draw?

Pupils of Madrid's San Ildefonso school have done it for generations; the first girl to sing the results was Mónica Rodríguez in 1984.

Spain's Christmas lottery is a draw of the Lotería Nacional, first held in which year?

That first Christmas draw took place in Cádiz, and the game kept running through the Civil War with a draw on each side.

In a classic 6-from-49 lotto, what are the odds of matching all six numbers?

The exact figure is 1 in 13,983,816, which is why the 6/49 format was popular with lotteries wanting jackpots that were hard, but not impossible, to win.

Italy's SuperEnalotto asks players to match six numbers out of how many?

That gives jackpot odds of about 1 in 622 million; its record single-ticket prize was €371 million in 2023.

Shirley Jackson's short story 'The Lottery' was first published in which magazine in 1948?

Readers cancelled subscriptions and sent so much hate mail that Jackson received at least ten letters a day that summer; South Africa banned the story.

In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery', what happens to the villager who draws the marked slip?

The victim is Tessie Hutchinson, and the ritual is supposed to guarantee a good harvest: 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.'

In the 1998 comedy Waking Ned, why can't the winner in the tiny village of Tullymore claim his prize?

His neighbours conspire to impersonate him; the film is set in Ireland but was shot on the Isle of Man.

The 1994 film It Could Happen to You was inspired by a real 1984 cop-and-waitress lottery win worth how much?

Yonkers officer Robert Cunningham offered waitress Phyllis Penzo half a ticket instead of a tip, then honored the deal when it won.

Which company produced the first computer-generated instant scratch lottery game in 1974?

It was led by scientist John Koza and promotions specialist Daniel Bower; earlier tickets had been randomized by hand.

ERNIE, the machine that picks winners for Britain's Premium Bonds, stands for what?

The first ERNIE was designed by Tommy Flowers and Harry Fensom, veterans of the wartime Colossus computer, and made its first draw in June 1957.

Which British Chancellor introduced Premium Bonds in his 1956 Budget?

The Lord Mayor of London bought the first £1 bond outside the Royal Exchange that November.

What fraction of an advertised US jackpot does a lump-sum winner typically pocket after tax?

Both Powerball and Mega Millions annuities are paid over 30 graduated installments rising 5% a year, and the cash value is about half the headline figure before tax.

In which of these countries are lottery prizes paid tax-free as a lump sum?

France, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Finland do the same; the US taxes winnings as ordinary income.

The 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal rigged the Daily Number draw by doing what?

A separate Hot Lotto scandal later involved software code secretly added to a random number generator so a fraudster could predict numbers on certain days.

Which Canadian province's gaming corporation sold the scratch game Mohan Srivastava cracked in 2003?

It became the first game the OLG ever recalled from shelves.

Keno, the ancestor of the lottery, gets its name from French or Latin words meaning what?

French 'quine' and Latin 'quini' both point to fives, though the game itself is Chinese in origin.

The 19th-century American 'numbers game' typically paid 600 to 1. What were the true odds?

The gap made the racket enormously profitable; the game was called bolita in Cuban communities and could be played for as little as a penny.

Swedish research found lottery winners of large sums generally did what over the next ten years?

The National Bureau of Economic Research study found they took more vacation and maintained or improved their happiness and mental health.

What was the largest single-ticket EuroMillions jackpot in sterling, won by a British ticket in 2022?

The euro record is €250 million, hit in August 2025 by a ticket sold in France.

Where was Australia's first lottery held in the 1880s?

It was a private sweepstake that was quickly banned; the government's own 'Golden Casket Art Union' launched in 1916 to raise money for charities.

Which Indian state, the leader in Indian lotteries, started its lottery department in 1967?

Only 13 of India's 28 states allow lotteries; Kerala's collected state revenue of Rs 1,691 crore in 2017-18.

The first recorded Italian lottery, held in 1449, was organised in which city?

The Golden Ambrosian Republic staged it to bankroll a war against Venice, the very rival that dominated Italian trade.

In which Asian country was a lottery first held in 1874 as part of a fair for King Chulalongkorn's birthday?

The country was then known as Siam, and the fair was an international showcase organised for Rama V.