I frequently pass the offices of the People’s postcode lottery (which are in Charlotte Square, one of the grandest addresses in Edinburgh, and opposite the First Minister’s official residence) and have started to wonder about this organisation.

I didn’t know much about it, so did a wee bit of googling. It seems that you pay by subscription, £10 per month and if your postcode is drawn you and any of your neighbours who are playing will get a prize.

According to their website at least 31% goes to charity (this is distributed through their own network of charitable trusts). I can’t find a figure for how much is paid out in prizes, but I suspect that most of the remaining 69% goes to the organisation.

I have formed the opinion that this is basically a sort of modern scam to get money out of people who are perhaps not very financially literate and who don’t realise they would be far better off putting their money into premium bonds or a different lottery which distributes more of the money as prizes (say the national lottery which distributes 50% of takings as prizes and pays 28% to charity).

Anyone play this lottery or have any opinions on it?

Never heard of it.

Modern scam. The postcode lottery was a pejorative term used to describe the variability in service which one received from any range of public sector bodies, depending on where you lived. These parasites have gone and tried to make a buck out of even that!

I don’t play it but the TV ads are frequent and annoying

Always thought it was a stupid/desperate tax

Seen the telly adverts where it comes across as an amazing charitable/socialist enterprise, never played it though or met anyone who has. But someone must, clearly!

These parasites have gone and tried to make a buck out of even that!

The lottery term originated before the provisions term.

Could still be a scam though but when they relaxed the regulations on lotteries a few small ones popped up not just the National Lottery anymore.

I suspect this place is diametrically opposite to the Democratic Peoples Postcode Lottery thingy from a demographics perspective. However now we’re talking about it we can expect some ads up there ^ and over there >

Might have to give it a go.

We had winners in Didcot last week. Top prize was £267,000 at lot got over £20 and everyone in the postcode who played got a minimum of £2000.
A lot of people won.

Annual report for 2015 here with a statement of income (page 10)…

https://www.postcodelottery.co.uk/uploads/media/default/0001/01/3374ef61fb4cb5ecec2d3fb6cc5a291a2389f2b7.pdf

According to their website at least 31% goes to charity

In 2015, about 40% across all their companies. About 25% in the UK.

Just had a wee dig into some of their annual accounts.
In 2016 they had income of £230m and spent 40% of it on prizes, 31.1% on lottery management costs and 28.9% on contributions to beneficiaries.
The amount paid out in prizes is actually more than I had been expecting.

My wife subscribed to it a while back. We’ve had quite a few £10 prizes which covers the monthly DD especially recently for some reason. Still waiting for the big one though.

Judging by a lot of the posts on here I suspect we don’t fall into the standard STW demographic either…

My OH plays it, I can’t see the point in lotteries or any gambling for that matter, the odds of getting back what you put in are vanishingly small.

My OH plays it, I can’t see the point in lotteries or any gambling for that matter, the odds of getting back what you put in are vanishingly small.

Depends what you bet on

My postcode won 2 years ago. Everyone who subscribed was invited to the village hall and told how much they had won. Some of the sums were life changing. My nextdoor neighbour won a Mini cooper and enough money to do her kitchen and bathrooms
We weren’t subscribers..in fact I had never heard of it!
We still aren’t.

I can’t see the point in lotteries or any gambling for that matter, the odds of getting back what you put in are vanishingly small.

It seems to me that most of what you’re buying (National Lottery or Euro Millions especially) is a the daydream of what you might do, or the excitement of checking the numbers. That’s the actual value for money, not the tiny likely return on investment.

My wife joined about 12 months ago despite me telling her that it was a waste of money. Our postcode was picked in July. We won £4406. My daughters school caretaker won £150k and so did his wife as they had both signed up.

A colleague of mine won £100k

Our postcode was drawn recently (Didcot one mentioned above). We aren’t in it but mrs’ old man won £5200. Think the biggest winner bagged £250,000.

“Barry, were off to Benidorm”

I do itt now, trying for a year and seeing how it goes for £120. Had two tenners so far 6 months in, so looks likely I’ll be down overall at this rate. That said, the community project I’m involved with has had quite a few grand in grants off it which really helped.

The good lady slack has just started doing it. Her reasoning being that there are only two houses that share this postcode and she was fairly sure the neighbours aren’t in it.

so how does it work? just the first 4 ie. SO16 or all 7 digits? what if your postcode has very few houses? fewer people to share with?

So not everyone gets the same but your all told in public at the village hall? That sounds like a recipe for envy and resentment!

Friends of mine won last week and got £30k. Most of it has gone already on Louboutn shoes.

I’ve just signed up. I reckoned it’s worth a punt as I normally buy a couple of scratchcards a week and get no luck on them so I’m switching to this.

The fact there are only 2 neighbours in it is a bonus 😀

none in my postcode. you can search a map of wins nothing more than £20 in my random clicking about

I do it only had a couple of tenners though, am I right in thinking the more of your neighbours that do it the better chance you have of winning say if 10 neighbours do it does that mean you have 10 chances of it been pulled out the hat? Surely that would be fair if you had to share it 10 ways,

Modern scam.

Try telling that to an ex work colleague of mine.

A colleague of mine won £100k

I think she won 1/6th of 180K, cos there was 5 other players in her street.

am I right in thinking the more of your neighbours that do it the better chance you have of winning

I think It’s just the postcode that wins, not the amount of entrants. So if you were the only person in your street that played, you’d get the lot, but if everyone played then you’d share the winnings. I think.

Don’t know anything about the lottery side of it but have heard that they’re quite good employers of people who may struggle to obtain employment / hold down a job / not be given a chance at other employers.