A postcode lottery is a modern version of the lottery. In the UK we have the National Lottery where you can buy a ticket and if your numbers come up you can win a lot of money. The postcode lottery uses your postcode as a way of determining who should win. It still pays out a lot of money, and there are district prizes which share money across entire postcodes.

History and State

The postcode lottery wasn’t invented in the UK. It was actually created in Scandinavia where it had great success. It was later unveiled in the Netherlands where it still works well today. The UK later implemented it after looking at the commercial success of the system in these countries.

The current state of the postcode lottery is good. It’s now been unveiled over the entirety of the UK, including most recently Scotland. It was started in 2005 and there have been many winners ever since.

How Do You Get Involved?

Your postcode plus another three-digit number will be used for the draw. For example, if you had the postcode SW24 1AB you might have the number 001 tacked on the end of it.  This is the number you automatically get when you enter.

To enter all you have to do is sign up for a subscription. These subscriptions cost £10 per month and the money for the tickets is automatically removed from your account via debit or credit card.

By automatically drawing the money from subscribers, this has the advantage of schedules advertising. In other words, they already have a rough idea for how big the jackpot will be. And it’s better for participants because they know when to get excited!

Players don’t have to pick up a ticket for the weekly draws. Since every month they get a set of four tickets to cover the month, they don’t have to consider going out to the store to buy one. It’s a passive way of entering the draw and this is one of the big advantages it has over the National Lottery.

What Happens When You Win?

In the UK, the Postcode Lottery launched a huge marketing campaign. It shows what happens when you win. Since most people enter the draw passively, they often don’t know they’ve won until they’re visited with a large cheque. Every winner is treated to a photo shoot and a big cheque.

They publish a press release of each big winner. This treatment only applies to the overall winner of the lottery.

There’s an additional district prize. The district prize is another part of the draw every subscriber gains instant access to. In this case, the unique number after your postcode is removed. If your district is drawn, you win a share of a much smaller prize. The smaller prize usually leads to about £100 being awarded to every person in the district who’s subscribed to the lottery.

A portion of the profits from every draw is given to charity, so participating charities will always gain a special prize regardless of the jackpot.

Martha Woods is the author of this delightful post. She is a professional writer and a passionate blogger. She writes on a wide range of niches and subjects. She finds the postcodefinder.me a great source of information.