• Coronavirus in Hungary
  • Budapest
  • Hungary border control
  • HelloMagyar
Amazing! lottery in Hungary celebrates 62nd birthday!Amazing! lottery in Hungary celebrates 62nd birthday!Amazing! lottery in Hungary celebrates 62nd birthday!Amazing! lottery in Hungary celebrates 62nd birthday!
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Society
  • Sport
  • Culture
  • Special Hungary
  • News To Go
  • World
  • Contact Us
  • About us
  • About us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
✕
Support us
Anna Wynn Anna Wynn · 08/03/2019
· Society

Amazing! lottery in Hungary celebrates 62nd birthday!

History Hungary
lottery, history, hungary

Drawing the lottery numbers Photo: fortepan.hu

Drawing the winning numbers of the Hungary Ötöslottó jackpot took place 62 years ago for the first time. This weekend, players get the chance to win the fifth largest amount in the history of the game. 

The very first lottery draw happened on a Thursday evening in Budapest, on the 7th of March 1957 – reports VG. 1.5 million lottery tickets were bought for the very first draw. Nobody won the jackpot, but a number of people got four of the numbers right, for which they received 160,000 forints (507 EUR). Back then, this amount was easily enough for a family house and a car, and you had plenty left afterwards.

Winning the first jackpot

The first person to get all five numbers right was a widow, Mrs Ring Sándor, who won 855,000 forints (2709 EUR) on the sixth week of the game.

She selected the numbers of her and her children’s age, bringing into fashion playing the game with family-related numbers.

In the first five years of the game, 15 people became millionaires – twelve of them won the jackpot while three of them had four numbers right.

Button

The 100th draw of the game was a special occasion. It took place on the 30th of January 1959, and all the previous winners were invited. Although the draw took place only in the evening, the surrounding area and the nearby streets started to fill up starting from the early morning.

In fact, there were people who climbed up to the roofs and tried to sneak in through the chimney – the police had to get involved to get them down.

In the beginning, people could win not only money but also serious prizes. Over a period of about 250 draws, people were up for 505 freehold flats, 590 cars and 224 family houses and holiday homes.

The first billion-winner

The first person to become a billionaire thanks to the game won the jackpot in October 1999, securing a sum of almost 1.06 billion forints (EUR 3,187,874). Since then, 34 people have become billionaires thanks to the game.

The all-time-biggest amount was won in autumn 2003, after 38 weeks of no jackpot. The lucky winner got to take home 5,092,890,758 forints (EUR 16,138,663). In 2019, there have been nine lottery draws so far, and 254 people won more than one million forints with a four-number hit. This week, the winning sum is 3,055,000,000 forints (EUR 9,680,870). All you have to do is hit the correct five numbers out of the 90 possibilities.

The odds of this are 1:43 949 268, while your chances of hitting four numbers are 1:103 410, the chances of hitting three numbers are 1:1 231 and the likelihood of getting two numbers right is 1:44.

An extremely lucrative business

In Hungary, the Ötöslottó is the most popular kind of lottery, with a weekly average of 1.3 million tickets bought.

Of course, the numbers cannot be predicted, and you are either lucky or not. However, it is interesting to note that some numbers turned out to be luckier than others in the past.

In the past twenty years, the following numbers were drawn the most:

  • number 3 (223 times),
  • number 75 (212 times),
  • number 18 (209 times),
  • number 42 (209 times,
  • and number 1 (208 times).

In case you are superstitious, you might like to know that number 13 is not cursed, either; in fact, it is up there with the most popular numbers with 206 draws in the past two decades.

Featured image: fortepan.hu

https://dailynewshungary.com/success-hungarian-game-designer-among-forbess-300-young-talents/

Source: vg.hu

History Hungary
Share
Anna Wynn
Anna Wynn

Related posts

gyuricza lászló kerepes mayor
18/08/2022

Hungarian man masturbates at HÉV stop, mayor gives ultimatum to come forward


Read more
Netflix
18/08/2022

Hungarian Media Authority investigates lesbian kiss shown in Netflix animated series


Read more
Google maps street view
18/08/2022

A Google Street View car ended up in the police station in Hungary


Read more

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SUPPORT US

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive daily updates, news & stories about Hungary!

Select your location below or enter your country so we can deliver our morning newsletters to you in time.


Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.


.


Latest news
  • Saint Stephen’s Day celebrations are starting! – here are the programmes
  • Hungarian man masturbates at HÉV stop, mayor gives ultimatum to come forward
  • The 10th Strand Festival at Lake Balaton starts today
  • Hungary will be facing challenging times in the next three months
  • Hungarian Media Authority investigates lesbian kiss shown in Netflix animated series
  • A Google Street View car ended up in the police station in Hungary
  • Over 770 kilos of endangered crayfish seized at Romanian border
  • Here is how to save if you live in a rented flat in Hungary!

About us

Contact us

© 2022 DailyNewsHungary. All rights reserved!