Supplier News
Spain – Major new lottery to be launched in Catalonia
By Phil - 21 October 2016
The Government of Catalonia aims to capitalise on the success of its New Year’s Lottery (La Grossa Cap d’Any) with the creation of a major new draw which will be launched on April 27 and will coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Catalonian lottery.
The lottery will launch €12m in tickets and a total of 80,000 numbers will go on sale for €5 a ticket. Tickets will be on sale, two days after the draw of La Grossa Cap d’Any, which this year is now in its fourth edition. The government will put on sale a total of €34m worth of tickets for this year’s La Grossa Cap d’Any.
“La Grossa has become the lottery of Catalonia and is the time to make it grow. That’s why we are launching a new lottery on a date as emblematic to Catalans as Sant Jordi,” said Director General of gaming and Taxation of Catalonia Marta Espasa.
Sant Jordi is the Catalan name of Saint George who is the patron saint of Catalonia. It is is also known as El Dia de la Rosa (The Day of the Rose) or El Dia del Libro (The Day of the Book) and the day of Sant Jordi is the Catalan equivalent to Valentine’s Day.
“Of the 6.8m tickets that will go on sale, nearly a million will have a prize,” Espasa said and added that the new lottery was in response to growing demand for more locally held draws.
Tickets for the La Grossa Cap d’Any have been on sale since July and can be purchased at any of the more than 2,000 outlets that sell tickets, such as kiosks, bookstores, bars or tobacco shops and online. The lottery along with other local lottery products including ‘Loto Rapid, ‘6/49’, ‘Trio’, ‘Super 10’ as well as brand new scratch card games were specifically developed and launched by Novomatic Lottery Solutions (NLS) via its omni-channel lottery system for lottery of Catalonia in April. This solution integrates the Catalonian Lottery’s sales network across retail, internet and mobile, and gives the Lottery’s customers access to its products from any channel.
Last year sales for the La Grossa de Cap d’Any, stood at €23m which left a profit of €5.6m which was destined for social welfare programs according to Espasa. So far from the first draw of La Grossa which was held on 31 December 2013, the lottery has generated a total of €20m of profits which has been destined to to social welfare projects.
The aim of the new lottery is to maximise the benefits from the continued success of the New Year’s Lottery which was first launched in 2013 in order to help reduce the government deficit and to obtain part of the €350m that Catalans play via the state run Christmas lottery as well as the Lotería del Niño held on 6th January. The initial launch of the lottery was controversial at the time but was defended by then President of the government of Catalonia Artur Mas, who said that: “With the lottery of Catalonia everyone wins because the money we play here stays here.”
