- UK Postcode Lottery
-
The People's Postcode Lottery (sometimes referred to as the UK Postcode Lottery) is a lottery in the United Kingdom, launched in the north east of England on 31 August 2005. The lottery has since expanded across Scotland and the rest of Great Britain. It follows the example of Dutch and Scandinavian systems that preceded it.
Original logo, adapted from the original Dutch versionThe lottery is in aid of charity, and works by using an entrant's postcode plus a unique three-digit number as their ticket number. For example; NE1 1AB 001. The lottery is run by Postcode Lottery Ltd, originally on behalf of The GoodFund.
A draw of a single ticket originally took place every Wednesday, using a computer similar to the Tote. Now five Street Prize draws take place per month, each occurring on a Thursday. There is a prize pot of over £35,000 with each Street Prize draw. All tickets playing in the winning postcode share £30,000 while those in the postcode sector share a £5,000 Sector Prize. There are also 500 further winning postcodes in each Street Prize draw. In addition to these weekly Street Prize draws, the lottery also launched a Daily Draw in 2011 in which each day, tickets in a single chosen postcode share £1,000.
During the initial launch phase only one draw took place per month, with weekly draws being around Christmas 2005.
The tickets are purchased by subscription and each costs £10 a month. Money is collected for the tickets every month by Direct Debit or by Credit Card. This has the advantage of ensuring the jackpot for each draw is known well in advance and the money for the charities is kept consistent. It also allows for prize money to be credited into a ticket holders bank account within 28 days, as each ticket is linked to a specific bank account. The Postcode Lottery actively promotes this form of payment, as it means that players do not have to travel to collect a ticket each week, or forget to buy their ticket; in reality this actually has the main effect of cutting costs down to allow more money to be paid to charity.
The Postcode Lottery supports local charities across Scotland, England and Wales, including Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, Missing People and several Wildlife Trusts.
Contents
Promoting the launch
In the build-up to the 2005 launch of the Lottery, mailshots were used to inform the public of a promotional competition in which 5 MINI Coopers were given away (one for each post code district in the north east). These were followed up by a cold call campaign from the sales office of the Postcode Lottery.
Local radio was used extensively to promote the launch of the lottery, with adverts being played every half hour on Metro Radio and Magic 1152. Metro Radio presenter "Goffy" signed up as the lottery's local ambassador and was featured in the lottery's printed adverts. These adverts have appeared in local papers (Evening Chronicle, the Herald and Post and the Sunderland Echo.
The first draw
The first draw was made on the 31st August 2005 as scheduled. The winner's identity was kept secret until the 7th September, although it was revealed that the winners Postal District was DH2.
On the morning of the 7th it was revealed that the winner's street was Second Avenue, which initially lead to some confusion as there are two Second Avenues in DH2. The winner's street was revealed as the Second Avenue off Waldridge Road in Chester-Le-Street. A street party was organised for that evening hosted by Metro Radio & TFM's Danielle Nicholls who revealed the winner's postcode to be DH2 2EH. The winner was 28 year old retail manager Mary Burnip, who was the only person in her postcode to buy a ticket.
Danielle Nicholls presented her with a cheque for £25,000. The district prize of £129 was shared between 77 people in the DH2 Postal district.
Now Street Prize winners are revealed weekly, with the winning postcode generally publicised on the day of the draw - every Thursday. The winning postcode is followed by photos and a press release about the winner.
Background to the launch
The Nationale Postcode Loterij was launched in the Netherlands in 1989 and so far has raised nearly €3.5 billion for charities such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature and Oxfam and given out nearly €750 million in prizes. Internationally, the Lottery is backed by high profile figures such as Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton.
Based on this success, the organisers, Novamedia, began to look at expanding into other markets, launching in Sweden in 2004.
Around this time, it was decided to trial the lottery as a regional launch in the UK, where the various regional development bodies bidded to have the lottery trial in their region. ONE North East was successful in its bid to have the Postcode Lottery launch in the North East of England, specifically within postcode areas, NE, DH, DL, TS & SR (Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Teesside & Sunderland).
The choice of the North East was mainly made because a high proportion of the population already play the successful National Lottery, but the majority of funds raised by the National Lottery are spent in London and the South East of England. They tend to go to good causes, such as the construction of new hospitals or the Millennium Dome for example, rather than registered charities.
Novamedia set up The GoodFund as its charity foundation in the North East. It was quickly registered as a charity and as a Lottery Promoter, then created Postcode Lottery Ltd to run the lottery. Now People's Postcode Lottery promotes the lottery on behalf of its charity partners - details of which can be found on the People's Postcode Lottery website.
Novamedia set up a central office in Richmond for the lottery's customer services, and chose a Newcastle upon Tyne based call centre company Echo U to run its sales call centre. Echo U opened a new office on Newcastle Quayside to handle the business. As of late 2010, People's Postcode Lottery is run from two offices - one in Edinburgh, and the original office in Richmond.
External links
Categories:- Lotteries in the United Kingdom
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
