Sportloto - the legendary Soviet lottery or the first scam in the country?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There are lotteries all over the world that people are happy to play. Sometimes the winnings reach enormous sizes, which further fuels the interest of the participants. For residents of Russia, especially for representatives of the older generation, the most famous of the domestic lottery has been and remains the Sportloto lottery. No other project has been able to achieve the same popularity. Read how the game came about, what could have been won at Sportloto and how Gaidai received his royalties with lottery tickets.

Lottery as an opportunity to host the Olympic Games in the USSR

The Sportloto lottery owes its origin to the Olympic Games, which it was decided to hold in the USSR. Such an event meant huge financial expenses. And since at that time Soviet sports were fully supported by the state, additional funds were needed to reduce budget costs.

Representatives of the USSR Sports Committee began to closely study the experience of other countries. It became clear that lotteries give considerable profit, and it was decided to use this opportunity. Moreover, there were such lotteries in the USSR. The Soviet people were supposed to get a gamble, and Sportloto became it.

First draw: one and a half million tickets and a prize of 5000 rubles

So, it was decided to launch the state lottery "Sportloto". Regarding the proceeds from the sale of tickets, the following option was adopted: half of the proceeds went to finance sports, the rest was intended for the payment of winnings.

Since the lottery was sports, all the numbers, and there were forty-nine of them, corresponded to a particular sport. For example, the last number, 49, is checkers. After the first print run, it became clear that the idea was to the liking of the population, 70% of the country's residents bought tickets.

The first circulation was carried out on the principle of "6 out of 49" and took place on October 20, 1970 in the well-known Central House of Journalists (Moscow). The draw was big, with one and a half million tickets participating. The winner this time was a modest Muscovite, engineer Lydia Morozova. She won a whopping 5,000 rubles. In those days, the popular Moskvich car cost so much.

Gaidai's fee for Sportloto-82 in the form of lottery tickets

On Saturdays, the Soviets turned on their televisions to watch the Sportloto circulation and play while checking their tickets. Members of the drawing committee were of particular interest, as they invited famous athletes, idols of ordinary people. For example, the famous football player and hockey player Vsevolod Bobrov, commentator Nikolai Ozerov took part. the queen of equestrian sports Elena Petushkova. Famous personalities increased the popularity of the lottery and instilled confidence.

In 1982, Leonid Gaidai presented a new comedy "Sportloto-82", in which there was a struggle for a winning ticket. They said that after that ticket purchases just skyrocketed, and there are still rumors that the director, in addition to the fee, received a hundred lottery tickets from the Sportloto directorate. This is how advertising was done 50 years ago.

Although, even Vladimir Vysotsky mentioned "Sportloto" in his famous song about "Kanatchikova dacha". Patients write a letter to the editorial office of the television program "Obvious - Unbelievable" and at the same time threaten to write to "Sportloto" if they do not receive an answer. Needless to say, this is indeed a reflection of the incredible popularity of the lottery.

The incredible popularity of the lottery and the appearance of the lottery drum due to claims of participants about scam

The tickets were not very expensive, and therefore everyone could afford to participate in the draw. People were buying the opportunity to win, and it was very exciting. The first draws, by the way, were not broadcast on TV, but the draws were held once every 10 days. The circulation table was printed in the newspapers: whole spreads were devoted to the lottery. To attract attention, the draws were held at the Sports Palaces, at large well-known enterprises, at stadiums.

When the lottery first appeared, a transparent drum was used during the draws, which members of the drawing committee rotated by hand, and from which the presenters took out balls with numbers. The popularity of the game grew, and dissatisfied people began to appear who claimed that all this was a scam, a forgery! Therefore, they decided to automate the process and created a lottery drum that allowed mixing and removing balls without human intervention. This helped reduce the intensity of the passions a little.

The beginning of the great era of "Sportloto" can be considered 1974, when draws began to take place in the television studio of Central TV, and the game began to be shown on Channel One.

Various schemes that people tried to use to win and 500 billion rubles for sports in 20 years

Sportloto tickets could be bought very easily, they were often offered in the accounting department when paying wages, they hung in railway and theater box offices, they were often used to replace change in shops.

However, few were lucky. It was almost impossible to win the jackpot at 6 out of 49. Probability theory says that the super prize is one in 14 million combinations. According to statistics, about 10 participants won it during the year. To increase interest, the “5 out of 36” lottery was introduced, where one out of 370 thousand people could win the jackpot. Many people have tried to create their own winning system, devoting years to it. They wrote down all the options that fell out, analyzed, tried to understand the winning scheme. It was almost impossible to do this without a computer, but still the fans did not lose hope. Some simply bought a huge number of tickets and were left without money when they won nothing.

At the time of its greatest popularity, at least ten million tickets were sold during each draw. Impressive! For twenty years, "Sportloto" attracted five hundred billion rubles to the treasury of Soviet sports, which corresponded to 80% of the sports budget. And the Olympic Games took place!

The history of the first lotteries goes back a long way. They were very popular in ancient Rome, and Catherine II fought with them.