California Lottery Consults UK
Last Updated: Friday 25th September 2020, 15:17
The California State Lottery is looking to the UK National Lottery organiser for advice on how to grow its ticket sales. The National Lottery organiser in the UK will serve as a consultant to its Californian counterparts, and it could well decide to extend the same consultancy service to other lottery organisations around the world.
The California State Lottery was established in 1984, whilst the UK National Lottery was launched in 1994. California has therefore been in the lottery business for a decade longer than the UK organiser, so what makes it look to the UK for advice on boosting sales of lottery tickets?
Results – that’s the short answer. The National Lottery has achieved some of the best lottery results (as in sales figures) in the world, and in the year to 31 March 2009 alone it achieved an increase of £182.8 million, bringing annual ticket sales to £5,149.1 million. You don’t achieve that kind of success by accident, and if the UK lottery organiser can help the California State Lottery to generate the same kind of results, and consultancy fee that the Californian organiser pays will be well spent.
Although the focus on ticket sales might seem a little too commercial for some altruistic lottery enthusiasts, it is important to remember that lotteries are businesses that exist primarily to make a profit. A large proportion of that profit is usually given to worthy causes (the UK lottery has raised over £23 billion for Good Causes since 1994) but it is profit all the same, and the fact that the UK lottery organiser is so good at making staggering profits is something that benefits us all.
By increasing ticket sales, the California State Lottery will automatically be increasing the amount of money that can be put into the public schools system. Out of every $1 raised from California Lottery ticket sales, no less than 34c goes straight into a public school classroom in one way or another. A desire to see sales increase is therefore very good news for public school students in California.
We in the UK should be proud of our National Lottery and the success that it has achieved. As this news story indicates, our lottery is respected around the world, and if other lotteries model our own, good causes globally will benefit even more.