Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 01 h

Ever played Lotto?
I didn't start my article asking if you ever WON Lotto, as the change on a positive reply might be more limited.  And chances, that is all about the lottery game.

People have played lottery games for ages.
And we can rufly identify three types of lottery games:

First type is a ticket with a unique number, your ticket has one number, that no one else has.
The winning number can be drawn in advance (your ticket number has to be scratched for example);
or the winning number is drawn after all, or most tickets are sold.
The odds depends on the numbers in play, and the numbers drawn.
If only one number is drawn and there are 1,000,000 tickets, your chance will be one in a million.

Such a type of lottery was already known in the 16th century !
A famous example of this lottery was introduced by Queen Elisabeth I, in 1566.
The tickets were sold over a period of 3 years and on the lottery tickets, the prizes were depicted.
Each participant won a prize, and among the prizes were silver plates, and other valuable commodities. The total amount raized was returned to the winners.
In fact, it was a type of loan the gouvernment needed to raize money for social works.
Rare, because in that era, most 'lotteries' were to raize funds for wars, or other personal interests of the rulers.

Queen Elisabeth I lottery ticket (16th century

Lottery ticket with a fixed number (19th century)

A second type of lottery is with multiple numbers.
Some with numbers that are drawn in advance, or with fixed numbers on your ticket.
Compare to the old Bingo game, where you play with fixed cards with several numbers.
Similar is the Keno game, that was known in ancient China.
It is said that the construction of the Great Wall was partly financed with money raized by Keno players.
In Keno, 20 numbers are drawn out of 80. The chance of winning the Jackpot (all 20 numbers) is aproximatly 1 in 3,535,316,142,212,173,800.000 !

Online (gamble) version of Keno

Finally, the last type, is where you choose your a set of numbers out of a total of possible numbers, hoping those numbers will be drawn at the end of the week.

I can write a lot about the odds, about the types of games, but as i'm not a "lotologist", you'd better find out those things is specialised websites.
Still I want to come to the reason I wrote this article : a special stamp edition of the Austrian post, displaying a lottery ball, on a round stamp! (how original)

25 years of Austrian Lotto (2011)

Attached to the sheet with the stamp, a voucher to get a free lottery chance.