Euromillions Superdraw
The Euromillions lottery is almost three years old, and to "celebrate" it is staging a superdraw which guarantees a €100 million payout, with no rollovers to disappoint ticket buyers. If nobody matches five main numbers and both Lucky Star numbers, the jackpot prize fund will be shared between those matching five main numbers and just one Lucky Star. If no second tier winners are found, the money will roll down to the third tier winners, and so on.
It all sounds rather nice, and personally I like the idea of guaranteed payouts just as much as I like the idea of winning a massive, multi-rollover jackpot. What I don't like, and what I think I'm seeing too much of, are "celebrations" which are clearly, in my mind at least, nothing more than convoluted excuses to stage such superdraws.
So it's Euromillions birthday... yippie ki yay. What will be next? An Easter Bunny Bonanza? A Summer Sun Special? We already have Christmas, new years and birthday lotteries, so why not pull out all the stops and have bank holiday specials as well?
Maybe I'm missing the whole point, but surely the marketing teams behind major lotteries can think of something better than staging "celebration" draws. Why not just have a regular superdraw every two months? Or, if they want to insist on us all participating in their "party", why not gives us a free drink or a chocolate bar with every ten tickets purchased? At least then we'd know it was really a celebration and not just a trumped up way to get free publicity in the newspapers.
Yes, I'll be buying a ticket or two for this Friday's Euromillions superdraw, but only because I buy a ticket every week and I happen to like guarantee payouts. It's not because I've been sucked into the whole "happy birthday" thing, and if they're honest I don't think the majority of players are being sucked in by that approach.
So, Euromillions - and all other lottery operators, if you're listening - go easy on the celebration spin. If you want more superdraws, schedule them. But don't dress things up with a balloon and party blower every time you have one, because nobody is fooled and... if you want the truth... it's beginning to wind a few of us up!
Article Last Updated: 06/02/2007 13:00:37
