A lottery for Canberra?

Running a local lottery wouldn’t actually be that hard. Taking a look at the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission’s site (http://www.gamblingandracing.act.gov.au/Lotteries.htm) the absolute max application fee for a lottery total prize win greater than $50,000 is only $687.00.

You’ve then got low priced, and reputable random number generator and lottery drawing services such as http://www.random.org/draws/records/ that would run you around $50-60 total for 10,000 entrants.

Essentially, you could run a lottery for just under $700 with 10,000 entrants, total cash division of over $50,000, powered by reputable random number generator service so that computer scientist nerds like myself, who are skeptical at how random some lotteries are – won’t have any trouble ponying up some money for some fun.

Definitely do-able.

They could have a regular Opera House Lottery, and buy more lovely art with it.

c_c said :

basketcase said :

The ACT had its own home grown lottery back in the dim dark days, 1970s?.

You’re quite right, it was a lucky barrel draw on CTC 7, hosted by an older chap spinning a hexagonal barrel and co-hosted by a brunette I believe who was Canberra television’s answer to Jennifer Hawkins for the era.

Think there was also a larger guy dressed up as something too?

This is correct. I remember one draw when ticket number 1 came up. The lottery closed down in the late 1970s and something called Community Chest started up which was supposed to end doorknocks in Canberra (which continued unabated). Community Chest closed down after rumours began circulating that the money was being used to fund abortions. Yes, Canberra was *that* sort of town back then.

I’m fairly certain that there are now no state owned lotteries, they’ve all been sold off to the private sector.. mostly to Tatts. I think ACTTAB is also the last government owned betting agency after Tassie sold theirs off. I expect ACTTAB will also be sold in the next couple of years too. Going backwards into government owned betting is a stupid idea. Governments are better off focusing on core service delivery rather than betting, where it’s has no expertise. The government still rakes it in from the taxes it places on betting and lotteries.

Good idea. I guess it could be run by ACTAB, somehow.

I’ve often wondered why the Victorian and NSW lotto/tattslotto systems have different draws and hosts on television but the same winning numbers each week.

I had to go look it up because while I assumed it to be the case, I wasn’t absolutely sure.

Unfortunately, the OP, while making a good point, is incorrect.

The ACT Government receives revenue from all gambling conducted in the ACT, including from revenues generated through the purchase of tickets in the ACT for NSW, Victorian and Queensland lotteries.

In fact the revenue from interstate gambling income to the ACT Government is the second highest income segment (out of 4) for all gambling revenue in the ACT, behind ACT Gaming tax income.
Estimated at $15,952,000 for 2012-13.

basketcase said :

The ACT had its own home grown lottery back in the dim dark days, 1970s?.

You’re quite right, it was a lucky barrel draw on CTC 7, hosted by an older chap spinning a hexagonal barrel and co-hosted by a brunette I believe who was Canberra television’s answer to Jennifer Hawkins for the era.

Think there was also a larger guy dressed up as something too?

Excellent idea! I’m all for voluntary taxation.

The ACT had its own home grown lottery back in the dim dark days, 1970s?.

It was dropped I guess because of the pool size.

Revenue still comes from sales, so while the government would be neutral on the idea, potential customers would steer well clear of it cos of the pool size.