Lottery Predictions

No, we aren't going to try and predict the winning numbers for this Saturday's Lotto draw. What we are going to do is make some educated predictions about how the lottery world will change over the next decade or two. These predictions are based on plans that are currently being discussed behind closed doors and on technology that is being developed. We therefore expect every single one of them to come true - we just know when it will happen...

Lottery Cards

Right now, if you lose your lottery ticket then you have effectively lost your claim to any prize it may have won. If someone else finds it, they can claim the prize quite legally because the lottery ticket is a "bearer instrument" and belongs to the person in possession of it, not to the person who bought it. Lottery cards would change all of that. Resembling a store loyalty card, a lottery card is registered to an individual owner. When that owner enters the lottery, the card is swiped so that their entry is directly connected to their identity. This means that they need never miss out on a prize claim due to ticket loss, and it also allows the lottery operator to notify major prize winners of their win should they forget to check their own numbers.

Self-Service Lottery Terminals

Whilst we think that there will always be the option of buying lottery tickets from a staffed lottery terminal, we do expect self-service terminals to be introduced at some point in the future. We would guess that these could be linked to Lottery Cards so that the numbers are registered and money is deducted from the player in the same movement, but there is of course a chance that the machines would be able to accept cash payment much like any other modern vending machine. Self-service machines would not entirely eliminate queues for lottery entries (after all, we have queues outside cash machines as well as in the banks themselves) but they would make buying tickets more convenient - especially if they were situated outdoors and usable for extended hours.

The World Lottery

Camelot has already announced that it is planning to create a World Lottery Draw at some point, so this particular prediction may be one that you were already expecting. The current information suggests that Camelot want the World Lottery to create up to one hundred brand new millionaires from every draw. Some forty-eight lottery organisations have expressed an interest in participating, though it is almost certain that this will change by the time the World Lottery plan becomes a reality.

- 19/9/07