What’s the best international lottery drawing show ever?

By | February 5, 2020

For some reason I found myself watching the latest episode of the horribly clinical National Lottery draw last night, where everything is automated, although possibly Alan Dedicoat recorded an extra line or two of dialogue of news to open the draw with in what must be the easiest money ever made. I know people “just want the numbers”, but I can’t help but think some sort of human touch would make it a bit more likable.

Compare and contrast with something I’ve become quietly obsessed with, which is the Irish Lotto’s Telly Bingo on RTE, where Declan Buckley, who’s been hosting the show for twenty years twice a week (for several years initially as his drag act Shirley Temple Bar) manages to get through a phone game and a bingo drawing in ten minutes utterly charmingly.

So my question for you is what’s the best international lottery draw show? It might have the best music or the best machine or the most drama. Importantly we’re only interested in the draws, so lottery sponsored gameshows are (mainly) out.

34 thoughts on “What’s the best international lottery drawing show ever?

  1. John R

    75k odd viewers for the YouTube main lotto draw videos seems pretty impressive considering anyone going to the effort of looking up the videos on YouTube probably play through the Lotto app on their phones these days

    Presumably Deadly can just knock the custom monetary announcements up in about 5 minutes from the comfort of his living room

    Reply
  2. Brandon

    There was a Belgian (or maybe French?) show called Millionnaire, that had a brilliant set around the machine. It’s kind of like the opposite of the current UK draw show, looks like it’s had a lot of money put into it rather than being done as cheaply as possible.

    Reply
  3. Callum J

    A couple of interesting things for today

    Hairy Bikers’ Chocolate Challenge (essentially The Great British Chocolate Off it seems) starts a week today on Channel 5 at 9pm.

    Harry Hill’s Alien Fun Capsule will (sadly) not be returning for a fourth series. It did reasonably well in the ratings, so it may have been Harry’s decision so he could focus on his Channel 4 projects.

    Reply
  4. Chris M. Dickson

    Telly Bingo twice a week, Telly Bingo twice a week, Telly Bingo twice a week, Telly Bingo twice a week!, as sang by the original Paul O’Grady.

    Am I permitted an honourable mention for Chanel 9 in the mildly racist old-fashioned comedy division?

    Reply
    1. Setsunael

      Interestingly, Tapis Vert nearly broke the French National Lottery. Being a lottery draw switching numbers for card figures, you could guess that many people would end up betting on quads.

      Quad aces got hit once in 88′ , paying 1000x stake to every punter that played it. It was by far the most played bet everyday… and rules weren’t factoring any winnings cap at that time. Whoops. That “event” ended up forcing the authorities changing status of France Loto (current name of the lottery at that time) and imposing regulations on fixed-odds games with capped payouts.

      If we’re talking about classy draws – well, in the early 90’s our Loto drawings were quite classy (skip to 3:45) https://dai.ly/xy1b2t

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      1. Brig Bother Post author

        That is exceedingly French and artily directed! Disappointed they didn’t keep the dry ice throughout though.

        Reply
      2. Jason

        Interesting to read the Tapis Vert story – seemed like an accident waiting to happen.

        8 cards to each suit means 1 in 4096 to win the jackpot. Any “patterns” (and four aces was the biggest – the first column) with more than four times the average number of bets would cause the lottery to lose money.

        I recall a similar situation happened in the UK – 7-14-21-35-42 came up in 2016, and while the match-three winners were “guaranteed” (it isn’t, but they got it) £25, match-four got £51 and match-five got an absurd £15.

        While they can’t control the spread of the tickets, Camelot didn’t foresee this happening (despite all the data they have) and ensure the rules protected the players in that scenario by pushing money up or down the prize ladder. £100 wouldn’t have been amazing but at least it would have been fair – giving them less money for more numbers is ridiculous.

        Reply
        1. Brig Bother Post author

          I think we need to change the word ‘fair’ for ‘just’ here, it’s perfectly fair, the methodology is pretty open. Personally I love freaky results like that, but then I don’t play.

          Reply
        2. Mart with a Y not an I

          Games rules and proceedures do allow Camelot to pay out less on every draw, if there winners payout exceeds the prize fund for that level/tier.

          It happened a couple of weeks ago on the Euro Millions 1 number Hot Pick, which paid £9 instead of £10.

          And Camelot once revealed that over 10,000 lines played in the lotto draw each week chose the sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6. If that happened the payout on a £3 million jackpot, would be £300 each.

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      3. David

        I read about that- what made it worse was that instead of a ticket costing say 5 francs per play, you could bet 2,5,10,20,50, or 100 francs per play, so the amount paid out in total could vary wildly depending on how much was bet (and it wasn’t all or nothing either- matching 4 got 1000x your bet, but matching 3 got 30x and matching 2 got 2x, so those had to be paid off as well…)

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  5. Nico W.

    Well, I know it’s not exactly what you are looking for, but I liked TV2 Denmark’s Bingo Banko about eight years or so ago. You got a free bingo card online and in the live show stunts, experiments and very random draws decided which numbers were drawn and you could win lots of sponsored prizes. It was largely comedy stunts in a hectic, more children’s tv-like setting, but it was a blast. German adatation got taken off the air after one episode so I never saw it unfortunately. But it had a weird channel and slot anyway, so it wouldn’t have worked well anyway. But I could definitely see it work on Dave or Channel 4 in the UK.

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  6. TheLupineOne

    Watching the Irish lottery’s Telly Bingo is making me want a reboot of The Biggest Game In Town… but could it fly in today’s post 0898-gate Britain?

    Reply
  7. Des Elmes

    Since we’re talking about the Irish lottery, here’s how the Lotto draw looked in 1999 when the great Ronan Collins was in charge…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JkTc_xRiOs

    …and how it looks now (if you overlook the fact that the video was uploaded by a kid filming off his iPad, which may or may not get him in trouble with RTE):

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Fun fact: you can download the RTE Player and watch their Lotto stuff in the UK without geo-restrictions, including Winning Streak.

      Reply
  8. John R

    Totally not lottery related but somebody on Wikipedia has seemingly recently updated The Colour Of Money article with a list of contestants and their winnings (or losings) including the contestants from Episode 8 which never aired on TV to my knowledge

    Reply
    1. Brandon

      It aired on Challenge eventually on about 2011. I was thinking the other day that I wanted to work out the average winnings (because of course I did, I really like working out that kind of stuff) and I was going to do that by skipping to the end of each players game. Now there’s no need, the data collection bit has been done for me.

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      1. Brandon

        The average per episode was £63,875, so obviously per contestant is £31,937.50. I expected it to be lower than that for some reason, I got it in my head that it was ITV’s way of doing a big money game show with low prizes actually given away because of the financial crisis.

        Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Wowsers. I think doing several draws at once is quite brave. My overriding concern though is that the arms of the people putting the balls in must ache like hell.

      Is this on television or online only?

      Reply
      1. CeleTheRef

        online only. years ago RAI had a lotto-based live game/entertainment show and one live drawing was shown at some point. it was back when the drawings were really in different cities and were done manually. One of the hosts were Tibero Timperi . Appropriately, he used to host Lingo.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFhnyuO88AU

        The giant machine in the back is filled with losing tickets. Sometimes they picked one and who sent it would win something.

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          1. CeleTheRef

            The machines were brought in 2000 only because a big scam was discovered the year before, involving altered balls and bribed children. Good times.

        1. Mart With An Y Not An I

          Watching other countries Lotto draws have a hypnotic effect after a time. Must be the balls spinning around the drum, the ever theatrical arms that draw the balls up, and the rolling down into the chute, all with a bombastic pulsatating theme tune.

          When abroad, I always try and pick up a Lottery playslip, if only in a non-English speaking country to try and understand how that draw operates. Watching the linked Italian Lottery draw, I know why I gave up and put the playslip back in the dispenser in a newsagents in Palermo a couple of years ago.

          (For someone who may know) I take it you end up choosing more than just 6 numbers – and you win if you match the 6 drawn from your however many numbers you have to choose.?
          Because with 1 to 90 balls in the lotto draw machine, no-one would ever win the damm thing.

          Reply
          1. CeleTheRef

            In Italy we sometimes call a “lottery” what in English would be a “raffle” and “lotto” what is internationally known as… something entirely different. A quick rundown:

            LOTTO: its a 5/90 game but this is NOT a lottery like the others. You can pick from 1 to 10 numbers and then you must choose how many matching numbers will make you win, at fixed odds. It’s a bit like playing roulette, if it had 90 numbers and five balls spinning around. First drawing in Genoa, A.D. 1576.

            SUPERENALOTTO: Started in 1997, it’s your regular 6/90 lottery. Odds of winning the big one: 1 in 622,614,630 Good luck. Jackpots in the 9 digits aren’t unheard of. Biggest one was €209 million last August. Before July 2009 numbers weren’t actually drawn at all: the winning numbers were the first drawn number of six specific LOTTO drawings of that day.

            LOTTERIA ITALIA: Raffle with pre-printed tickets, sold at €5 apiece starting in September. The drawing is held on January 6th. Draws used to be made on live television until some balls got stuck in a machine in 1997 and all hell broke loose. Winning tickets are announced on a RAI show, last year it was Soliti Ignoti.
            From a newscast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLKX6MksxDk

  9. Barney Sausage

    Loosely associated to the Irish lottery, in that you have to buy a scratchcard to get on it – but I love Winning Streak on Saturday nights on RTE, ad a couple of weeks ago the big prize went on the wheel – 500k, the first time since 2011…it’s on Youtube for those who want a look…

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  10. Joey Clarke

    In my opinion, the draws need changing when the Saturday night draws come to ITV properly.
    1) Studio.
    The new Lottery HQ would receive a massive overhaul regardless of location. (Either Pinewood studios or MediaCityUK)
    2) New presentation and graphics which fits with modern times.
    3) Music.
    The current music is crap.
    It needs changing.
    Something dramatic in the G minor tone that will catch on.
    Something the combined minds of Marc Sylvan and Paul Farrer can create.
    4) New shows.
    Some new shows will have to be created as well as some old favourites being revived.

    Reply

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