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The Channel Islands’ lottery organiser has said that the proportion of winning tickets for Christmas instant prizes remains “approximately” the same as last year, after social media commenters questioned whether numbers had dropped.
A number of islanders this week queried whether scratch prizes had gone down in posts on Facebook.
One poster asked: “Have a few Santas just about making the ‘guaranteed’ amount but not even one Xmas Tree. Maybe I was just unlucky or do other syndicates feel that there are not many scratch prizes this year?”
Another claimed they had scratched around 50 tickets and not seen a single instant prize.
When asked by Express about the amount of winning tickets, figures given by the Senior Lottery Officer Jon Taylor showed that there are 79,852 (5%) instant cash prizes to be won, and 150,000 (10%) free cards to be won, creating a 15% instant prize total from the 1,500,000 cards produced for the Channel Islands.
Pictured: There has been a 2% proportional decrease in the amount of prizes given out between 2020 and 2019.
In comparison to the previous year, there was a 2% proportional decrease, with 2019 having a 17% instant prize total from 1,200,000 tickets priced at £3.
The total amount of money put into the instant cash prize fund has also gone down from £936,000 in 2019 to £780,000 in 2020.
Explaining the shift to 10% of winning tickets having free tickets as a prize rather than instant cash, Senior Lottery Officer Jon Taylor said: “They’re not free tickets as such, there’s still a value of £2, and there’s an encouragement for people to have another opportunity to win.”
Pictured: This year, Christmas Lottery ticket prices were brought down from £3 to £2.
On the £936,000 coming down to £780,000, Mr Taylor said that it was “purely an economic factor”, and came from bringing the price of tickets down to £2.
“We listened to the general public; we very much value their input. We did an island-wide survey at the start of the year, and essentially the overwhelming request was that we reduce the ticket price from £3 to £2,” he added.
The changes in the lottery system this year come after a tough 2019 for Christmas lottery sales, which saw an almost £400,000 drop on the previous year’s sales.
Today it was announced that the guaranteed first prize for the 2020 draw is now up to £640,000, with the possibility of it going up more depending on how many tickets are bought.
Mr Taylor said: ”The main purpose of the Christmas Draw is to generate funds for local worthy causes, and we hope that by reflecting the feedback from lottery supporters, we can boost that total."
Social Investment Fund Manager and Independent Live Observer at the draw, Jurat Stephen Jones OBE, said of this year's draw: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Association of Guernsey Charities for their involvement in distributing lottery proceeds over the years. We will be working closely with them to ensure we support as many worthy causes as we can in 2021.”
2020 – Ticket price changed from £3 to £2
2019
2018 – format changed to include more draw prizes. Ticket price rises from £2 to £3
2017
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