National Lottery bosses have refused to say how much of €72.4million in unclaimed prizes is returned to players through special draws and prizes.
Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI) used the funds to support almost 40 “special events” between November 2014, when it took over the licence to operate the National Lottery, and December last year.
Records obtained under freedom of information legislation reveal there were more than 800 winners of additional prizes through a variety of player promos and competitions in the same period.
PLI strongly opposed the release of information about unclaimed prizes.
Under its licence terms, the company is allowed to retain all sums unclaimed after 90 days for marketing lottery products but can also use the money for special draws, top-up or additional prizes.
Details of the amount of unclaimed prizes available to PLI were only published after the Office of the Information Commissioner directed the figures be released.
PLI is a consortium between An Post and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The documents released show PLI ran one “tactical promotion” using €100,000 from the unclaimed prize fund in May last year which was expected to give a top-up of a €20,000 holiday to any winner of the Lotto Match 5+Bonus.
Another promo entered players who played an online version of Stacks of Cash, €50,000 Richer and Flamin’ Hot Numbers during one week in May 2016 into another draw for a €1,000 holiday.
A Telly Bingo scheme run over eight weeks in the summer of 2018 gave Snowball winners an additional award of a €1,000 holiday.
More than three-quarters of all winners received prizes in special draws that did not require purchase of a National Lottery game and which are likely to have involved smaller amounts of money.
More than 210 prizes were given out through Facebook competitions.
In a statement, PLI said it operated the National Lottery in accordance with the terms of its licence and was monitored by an independent regulator.
National Lottery proceeds made available for good causes last year totalled €224.6million.
