The luck of the Irish was put to test in 1988 in the first ever draw of Lotto, the Irish Lottery. However, National Lottery actually began gaming a year earlier when the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas) passed the National Lottery Act of 1986. According to the Act, the license for lottery is valid for just ten years, after which it should be reissued to the most competitive bidder.

Behind the Scenes of Lotto Ireland

The National Lottery is run by the An Post National Lottery Company under the supervision of the Irish Finance Minister. The Finance Minister has the power to grant or cancel lottery licenses and controls the utilization of funds generated by the lottery. These funds go towards support for national level sport, health, heritage, arts and language. Over the years, the National Lottery has raised over €3 billion for these initiatives.

A Post National Lottery Company is an auxiliary division of the An Post, Ireland’s postal service company. The company was granted the lottery license until 2008 but in 2006, the then Finance Minister of Ireland Brian Cowen decided to extend the license another two years until December 2010. It is highly likely that this very extension was the cause for the massive media re-branding campaign that was initiated in 2008, including a new logo, color and unified branding across all products at a cost of €6 million.

Lotto Ireland Game Range

Since its beginnings with scratch cards, Lotto quickly moved on to a six balls game from a total of 36 balls format. Draws were held every Saturday night and in 1990, a midweek draw on Wednesday nights was added. Let’s look at the various formats over the years:

• 6/36: In the 6 of 36 balls format, a jackpot of £250,000 was guaranteed for a winning combination of all six numbers matching at odds of 1 in 1,947,792. The trouble with this format was the fact that all possible combinations could be bought for the sum total of just £973,896. A 28-member syndicate exploited this loophole and bought over 1.6 million combinations and managed to win one-third of the total jackpot. They spent an estimated £820,000 and earned aapproximately £1,166,000.
• 6/39: In 1994, the Lotto changed to a 6 from 39 balls format, effectively raising the odds to 1 in 3,262,623. To keep the public interested, a match of six, five, and four numbers plus a bonus number was added to the rules.
• 6/42: To enable bigger jackpots, the National Lottery changed to the 6 from 42 balls format and additionally offered computer-generated quick pick option. It worked and the jackpot went over €1.35 million.
• 6/45 (Present Format): In November 2006, the game changed into a 6 from 45 balls format, raising the guaranteed jackpot prize to €2 million. The price of tickets went up by 50% consequently. Currently the odds are at about 1 in 8,145,060.

Besides these changes, the National Lottery also introduced variants of the game such as Lotto Plus, Lotto 5-4-3-2-1, Monday Million, Millionaire Raffle and Telly Bingo. Besides this, National Lottery also represents EuroMillions in Ireland.

For more information visit the national lottery resource or follow us on Twitter.