The popularity of lottery games around the world, from the UK National Lottery to games in the most remote parts of the Earth, makes them a popular target for attempts at special feats and tricks, and the Singapore Lottery is no exception. The Asian country is gearing up for a special multi-day event in which two high-profile magicians will use a number of undisclosed methods to arrive at the winning numbers for a major lottery game.

The event is set to draw plenty of attention as the prediction will be noted down and encased in a series of complex and ostensible tamper-proof casings, with a final seal being placed on the contraption’s outer lock and a signature from the local lottery authority. The prediction, inside its various trappings, will be suspended in a public area for six days preceding the announcement of the winning lottery numbers, and will be checked only after the game has been completed.

Though there are many who are skeptical about the magic couple’s chances of striking a win, others are enthusiastic about the challenge. Whether the feat is successful or not, the team stands an excellent chance of being watched with keen eyes as they attempt one of the most dazzling and potentially rewarding tricks in the book. The sealing will took place on the 22nd of January, and interested citizens will be able to view the prediction on display until the lottery’s draw on the 27th.

Popularity: 14% [?]

The dream of winning the UK National Lottery or the EuroMillions draw is strong for most players, but some may be more susceptible to believing in scams that are simply too good to be true. The most recent victim in a EuroMillions lottery scam making its way across the UK and the continent was an elderly woman hailing from Aberdeen, who has duped out of £24,000 as she followed the instructions of a man pretending to be acting in an official lottery operator capacity.

The woman received a falsified notice that she had won a substantial monetary prize through the draw, and was persuaded to make two distinct payments into separate UK business accounts in order to be able to claim her prize. Authorities investigating the scam have noted that the sophisticated use of seemingly legitimate bank accounts and names may have played a significant role in convincing the woman that she had really won.

Lottery officials have reminded their players that contacting the operator of the draw directly to verify a win before taking any action is of the utmost importance, and further caution that contact from those alleging to be authorities should be taken with several grains of salt. Recent EuroMillions and other lottery scams have been circulating via email, phone, and post, and are often marked by realistic logos, stationary, and other paraphernalia, making the need to double-check correspondence and notifications especially pronounced.

Popularity: 14% [?]

While lottery players have certainly shown their prowess in wins of the UK National Lottery over the years, UK players’ performances in the multi-national EuroMillions draws have been positively stellar, with a long list of mega millionaires created from the popular game. This week, another UK winner learned of their sudden windfall of £26.1 million after splitting a £52.3 million jackpot with an unidentified player in France. After the winning numbers were announced on Friday, players waited in anticipation for the winners to come forward, and the lucky UK participant kept onlookers anxious with nearly a full day of waiting before contacting the lottery authorities to stake their claim.

Of course, the precise timing of the win as well as the claim means that the massive check won’t be interacting with any eager UK banks until this morning, when some of the cash may be deposited in order to rack up some respectable interest –which could be as high as £50 thousand per month. When the funds are finally released into the winner’s hands, they’ll have to decide whether to make their identity public or to keep players wondering. Whether the winner is an individual or party of a syndicate is as yet unknown, though substantial recent wins for UK syndicates, including the Liverpool BT call centre winners who snatched £45.5 million late last year, have many taking their ticket purchasing strategies to new heights with lottery pools at work and in local communities.

Popularity: 16% [?]

The vast sums of money allotted to charities and philanthropic causes across the United Kingdom each year from the UK National Lottery goes a long way towards infusing national well-being and quality of life. But the directors and hard-working staff behind such initiatives are not always given the recognition they deserve. Enter the UK National Lottery Awards, an annual event that honors the UK’s top-rated funding recipients. The Lottery is currently accepting nominations in the heritage category, hoping to acknowledge the director or team with the most significant impact over the past year.

Winners of the annual awards appear on a high-profile ceremony aired on BBC1, which is often a great boost to reputation and visibility, and are also eligible to win a two thousand pound prize. All beneficiaries of National Lottery funding over the past fifteen years are approved for nomination. Of course, more substantial funds are doled out each week to charity organizations –about twenty five million pounds–, but it’s precisely how these funds are used by program leaders that often makes a world of difference in the creation of effective community outreach, restoration, humanitarian, and other projects.


When you pick up your tickets this week or settle in with your favorite scratch cards, consider making a nomination for UK heritage charity projects –it’s a way for players to become even more involved with an institution that delivers both fun and essential funding.

Popularity: 7% [?]

With the approach of the New Year, there’s plenty to get excited about if you’re into playing the UK National Lottery. Those who had purchased tickets in advance of Christmas Day may have been disappointed to find that there weren’t any jackpot winners, but that simply means a rollover is in store for everyone playing this week. The draw today will tempt players to take their shot at an impressive ten million pounds, which is certainly a sum capable of getting the New Year off to a great start. Also luring lottery lovers this week is the EuroMillions draw, set to take place on New Year’s Day.
Christmas Day was all dressed up and ready to receive a newly-made millionaire from the EuroMillions draw, but as there wasn’t any jackpot winner, players can look forward this week to keeping their eyes on the numbers for the approximate twenty five million pound prize available as the result of the double rollover. Even if both of these exciting games turn out with no one chosen as a jackpot winner, the Millionaire Raffle, also set for New Year’s Day, ensures that at least one person will be seeing plenty of green this holiday.
One of the busiest seasons for lottery companies, the holidays hold the hope of some surprising windfalls for scores of people around the world, some of whom are able to witness holiday money miracles as their wildest lottery fantasies come true.

Popularity: 6% [?]

There are plenty of UK National Lottery players inspired to pick up a few extra tickets during the holiday season, but there is perhaps no nation as dedicated to winter lottery festivities as Spain, which holds a special lottery and broadcast each year before Christmas. This year, as ever, scores of Spaniards spent a few hours glued to their television sets as children dressed in blue and gray sang hymns not to the standard figures of the season, but to the lottery numbers and winning amounts, all in a Gregorian-style chant that keeps hopeful players transfixed.

Eyes became especially wide –and ears especially open– as the children approached the winning numbers for “El Gordo,” or “The Fat One,” one of Europe’s largest lottery games and by far the biggest for the total doled out in winnings. Comprising a cherished annual tradition, preparation for “El Gordo” begins each year with families, work colleagues, and all manner of other social groups getting together with their chosen numbers, buying tickets in large syndicates and photocopying the numbers for safekeeping. Spaniards can expect such a substantial lottery payout each year thanks to national participation –most players allot approximately half of their intended annual lottery spending on their “El Gordo” ticket.

Though economic difficulties felt around the world have taken a considerable toll on lottery games, Spain’s yearly holiday draw has barely noticed any effect, with ticket sales dropping just three percent last year.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Lottery scams abound –attempting to prey upon the desire of players to win, such scams have been documented around the world, from tricks played on UK National Lottery ticket holders to those participating in the EuroMillions and beyond. Recently, lottery scam targets in the United States were alarmed when they received a call informing them that they had won –with one small caveat. In order to collect their winnings, they were told, they’d have to wire $150 US to the location of the caller’s choice (which happened to be, incidentally, in another state entirely). Suspecting that something was off, the potential targets phoned their state lottery officials, who confirmed that the agency did not call winners to inform them about their win –the call had been a fake.

When the con man, who was described as having a thick accent and whose area code placed him in Jamaica, called again, the victims decided to have a bit of fun, and strung him along through several phone calls making supposed plans for sending the money, without actually sending anything. The con man eventually gave up after a representative of the police spoke with him over the phone and one of the victims caught the man lying about the existence of a US National Lottery. While this particular lottery opportunist made off only with a higher phone bill for his troubles, the case serves as a good reminder to be cautious.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Lottery players concerned over misplacing their tickets may face a more pernicious threat, as was recently illustrated near Toronto. It’s there that a lottery winner, who claimed a roughly $5.4 million prize from a ticket that had won in 2004, recently admitted to stealing the ticket from a customer. While the specifics of precisely how the clerk managed to pull off the heist are not entirely forthcoming, the story surrounding the man’s eventual call to court is especially interesting.

The real winners, who comprised a lottery syndicate, had been discussing their lack of luck with lottery numbers when someone expressed their wondering at whether the group’s special set had ever won historically. Curious, group members performed a search and found that, in fact, their numbers had come up –in a jackpot win a few years previous. Tracking down the source of the discrepancy was a challenge, and the group members initially hired a private investigator in an attempt to discover whether the money had been kept by one member from the rest of the group. Finally, the matter was connected to the ticket clerk, who has had his house, cars, bank account, and other assets seized.

The winning group is set to receive their rightful winnings along with a substantial interest payment reflecting what they would have accrued during the time since the theft took place. The story serves as another reminder to UK National Lottery players to check their numbers independently if they suspect they’ve won!

Popularity: 5% [?]

The allure of a lottery win can sometimes drive people to do a bit more than simply buy a ticket or join a syndicate. Though consequences are serious and success is by no means likely, some people nevertheless attempt to steal winning lottery tickets, a practice which lands many in jail –or with fines which can, ironically, seem to take a lottery winning to pay off. One such ticket stealing event took place recently in Massachusetts, where a lottery clerk was tipped off by a call from the state lottery to look out for suspicious lottery winners or tickets.

Soon after receiving the call, the clerk noticed two people with a winning $5,000 ticket attempting to cash in their prize. The clerk made a phone call to check on the winning numbers, and was told that the ticket was indeed stolen; he was instructed to retain the pair. After offering the couple some coffee while they waited, the clerk was met with the site of police, who arrested the would-be winners. Thankfully carried out with no violent incident, the crime may be connected with a more serious offense involving a kidnapping, and investigations are ongoing. While most lottery winners safely claim their prizes, this Massachusetts tale suggests that UK National Lottery winners have nothing to lose from being extra careful with their tickets, or simply playing through an online system with no opportunity for the theft of physical goods.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sometimes a lottery win turns out to be a source of serious contention within a marriage, even though it has the potential to cause plenty of joy and prosperity. The thrill of winning quickly wore off for Ray Sobeski and Nynna Ionson after their $30 million win in 2004, and as Ionson battled in court for half of the winnings, the couple quickly became the center of a significant media frenzy. After scandalous documents regarding the private lives of the pair surfaced, attention became even more focused on the proceedings of the court, though the couple eventually took their cases out of the court and settled on secret terms.

Steeped in silence for several years, Sobeski and Ionson have returned to the spotlight due to rumors of reconciliation spread by sightings of the pair walking together on several occasions. Speculations about the couple’s famous relationship are once again dominating in gossip rags, bringing a distinct note of extra drama to the lottery scene this season. Of course, there are many couples who stay together and have much less rocky tales to tell about the experience of winning –and spending– their lottery cash, from UK National Lottery partners to those around the world. But when a couple turns contentious over their windfall, it seems the whole of the planet becomes trained on the action –wondering, perhaps, if their relationships would thrive or be thwarted after a win.

Popularity: 6% [?]