UK Postcode Lottery

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The UK Postcode Lottery is a lottery in the United Kingdom, launched in the north east of England on 31 August 2005.

Original logo, adapted from the original Dutch version
Original logo, adapted from the original Dutch version

The 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, on behalf of The GoodFund.

A draw of a single ticket will take place every Wednesday, using a computer similar to the Tote. This ticket will be the sole winner of the jackpot, which is guaranteed to be at least £25,000, but this could rise to as much as £200,000 if the hoped for 40% of households in the North East play the Lottery eventually.

During the initial launch phase only one draw will take place a month, with weekly draws being around Christmas 2005.

The jackpot, which is 50% of the total prize fund is won by the holder of the drawn ticket. The remaining 50% is split into a street prize and a district prize. The street prize is shared between everyone who shares the same postcode who holds a lottery ticket. The district prize is awarded to everyone in the same postcode district, i.e. NE1, who holds a lottery ticket.

The tickets are purchased by subscription and cost £2 a week. Money is collected for the tickets every 4 weeks by Direct Debit. Therefore one ticket will cost £8 for every 4 weeks. 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 14 days, as each ticket is known to come from 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 only supports local charities in the North East of England, these include the Metro Radio charity Just For Kids (Whose patrons are Ant and Dec), TFM's charity Make A Child Smile, Children's North East, The Evening Chronicle's Sunshine Fund, Groundworks and the north east branch of the National Missing Persons Helpline. Eventually it is hoped to introduce a "charity of the week", which will be voted for by the lottery's players, which will receive 50% of all funds raised on that specific week. These are intended to be smaller local charities who may only require a few thousand pounds a year, but have virtually no hope of raising this.

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[edit] Promoting the launch

In the build-up to the launch of the lottery, mailshots are being used to inform the public of a promotional competition in which 5 MINI Coopers are being 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. Due to the nature of payment for tickets (Direct Debit), the fact that cold calling was used extensively has led some of the public to believe the lottery to be a scam. In the UK cold calling is a disliked form of advertising, and has the resultant effect of showing the lottery in a bad light.

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 has featured in the lottery's printed adverts. These adverts have appeared in local papers (Evening Chronicle, the Herald and Post and the Sunderland Echo.

As the launch period went on it became apparent that most of the local populace were apathetic to the launch. In response to this the Postcode Lottery began to hold a weekly draw to win a selection of iPod Mini's and giving "early bird" players in the lottery five extra tickets into the Mini Cooper draw.

[edit] The first draw

The first draw was made on the 31st August as scheduled. However in order to create some excitement 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, and as she was the only player in her postcode she also pocketed the street prize which was approximately another £10,000. The district prize of £129 was shared between 77 people in the DH2 Postal district.

[edit] 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 (now known as Lotto), 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, whom created Postcode Lottery Ltd to run the lottery.

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 rose to this challenge by opening up a new office on the fashionable Newcastle Quayside.

[edit] External links

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