Tombola (raffle)

Tombola is a raffle which originates in Southern Italy and which is mostly played in Christmas time. Prizes are often only symbolic. With the Italian massive emigration of the 19th and 20th centuries, the game was exported abroad and it took different forms and names such as Bingo.

In the UK, a tombola is a raffle in which the prizes are already assigned to winning tickets before the start (typically all the winning tickets end with the same digit - or if being strict with a five or a zero). Players pay for a ticket, which they then draw out from a hat, and can instantly see whether or not they have won a prize. Tombolas are popular at events such as coffee mornings, when it is expected that not all the players will be present at the end of the event.

In some other languages such as Bulgarian or Slovak, "Tombola" is a general word meaning raffle.

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