Last night (October 27), Australia's unprecedented Powerball ( Powerball ) with a prize of up to 160 million yuan was drawn! The first prize of
was won by three lucky people, each of whom will receive a prize of of 53 million. It is reported that the three winners are from Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Victoria's winner is a blue-collar worker from Clyde, a Southeastern region who has planned to retire soon. Winners in NSW and Western Australia remained "mysterious" and did not want to reveal who they were.
October 27Powerball results
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In fact, since the bonuses began to accumulate in the previous few weeks, countless people were deeply attracted by these 1.6 "small goals" and dreamed of "get rich overnight". According to incomplete statistics, more than half of Australian adults participated last night.
In addition to the first prize, has a prize of 117 million Australian dollars, and 6 million people are "dividing it up" together. The essence of the huge prize money of
Powerball is actually "winner-takes all". The proportion of people who can win the prize is minimal. Most people just "join with them" and contribute their own strength to this huge prize pool.
We might as well "do the opposite" and see how much money can the lottery companies make from it behind Powerball's fanaticism. Behind the
Powerball is Tabcorp
Powerball is a listed company, The Lottery Corporation (ASX: TLC). However, this company, which was listed in May this year, operates various lottery businesses across Australia. Its predecessor is probably more familiar to everyone. It is Tabcorp, which occupies half of the Australian gambling industry market.
On June 1 this year, Tabcorp officially completed the split of two companies, divested its lottery and Keno gaming businesses, and established a new company TLC for operations.
In the fiscal year 2022, the company sold more than 660 million lottery tickets, and accumulated bonuses of 4.9 billion Australian dollars, creating more than 320 new millionaires. Powerball is the most popular one in its lottery business, and it is also the product with the highest revenue share, reaching 39%, which can be said to be the company's "money-making game". How much does
Powerball make?
Picture/the Lott
How does Powerball, which makes half of Australians participate in it, grab interest rate by cleverly operating as a company? This is closely related to its income and expenditure composition.
- income composition
In fact, Powerball income composition is very simple, which is to sell lottery tickets (total lottery subscription amount). In other words, the more you sell, the more you earn. The biggest selling point and most attractive thing about Powerball is its attractive huge bonus.
According to the data, there have been 9 lottery draws in the history of Australian lottery, which exceeded 100 million Australian dollars, 8 of which were provided by Powerball Lottery. It can be said that Powerball's prize money is higher than other lottery products. The reason why such a huge bonus comes from the setting mechanism behind it.
You can see that Powerball is a cumulative bonus pool. The lowest bonus pool is 3 million every Thursday. If you win the first prize without a first prize, the bonus will automatically accumulate until the next week.
From this year to now, the cumulative first prize prize awards from Powerball have exceeded AU$454 million, and the latest super high prize was born in February this year - after four periods of accumulation, it finally won 126 million.
With the birth of huge jackpots again and again, Powerball has also attracted the attention of the public, and thus promoted the further increase in the sales of lottery tickets.
’s bonus is so high, how much does Powerball earn in a year?
According to the company's financial report for 2022, TCL lottery business revenue hit a new high of AU$3.25 billion, of which Powerball's revenue accounted for AU$1.268 billion, far exceeding other lottery products. The lottery revenue data here is minus the bonus payable when each period of official lottery draw is minus the total amount of lottery subscription received. Simply put, it is Powerball's net income after deducting the bonus.
- expenditures constitute
In addition to bonuses, Powerball's expenses mainly include government taxes, commissions and service fees, as well as the overall operating cost including labor, advertising, technical expenses, etc.
Although the single Powerball cost was not specifically disclosed in the TLC financial report, from the perspective of the company's overall business, government tax expenditure accounts for the largest proportion, accounting for nearly 60% of the total revenue, while commissions and service expenses account for about 15% of the revenue. The total expenditure of the
TLC lottery business reached A$2.65 billion in fiscal year 2022. Since Powerball accounts for 39% of TLC's total revenue, we assume that the cost of lottery projects is evenly aligned based on revenue. Calculated by this proportion, Powerball's expenditure in fiscal 2022 will be approximately 1.035 billion.
- Profit
Total, in terms of revenue minus cost, Powerball's revenue can reach about AU$234 million in a fiscal year, with a profit margin of around 18.4%. In contrast, Tabcorp, which has divested TCL, has seen its operating profit margin (EBITDA Margin) drop from 16% to 6.81%, which shows that the profit margin of the lottery business is higher than other businesses.
"Blind-box operation" to gain more profits
In fact, in order to increase profits, Powerball has been secretly performing "Blind-box operation" - by changing the rules of the game, reducing the chance of winning the first prize, thereby continuously accumulating a prize pool, attracting more people to buy, and further increasing its own revenue.
The latest change in Powerball rules was in 2018. Before this, bettors who wanted to win the jackpot had to only choose 6 numbers from 40 numbers, but now they had to choose 7 numbers from 35 numbers.
Although it doesn't seem to change much, the difficulty of winning the first prize in has almost doubled . From a statistical point of view, the probability of winning the first prize was one in 76.77 million, but now it has reached one in 134.5 million.
What is this concept? The probability of a person being struck by lightning in his life is one in 1 in 1.22 million. The probability of winning the first prize now is basically equal to the probability that a person is hit by lightning twice in a row.
It can be said that the lottery with huge jackpots is actually accurate statistics and full of marketing routines. Through a slim chance of winning, you can accumulate bonuses, attract people to bet, and provide the company with a steady stream of income.
Many people insist on buying lottery tickets, believing that there is a chance to achieve "financial freedom". Australians spend $1.9 billion on lottery every year. But in fact, no matter which country in the world, the chance of gaining wealth freedom by buying lottery tickets is about zero.
However, the super jackpot actually promoted the sales of lottery, especially with this gambling game, which won the free promotion opportunity to enter the mainstream media of . In this sense, lottery companies will also ensure that the jackpots continue to accumulate and grow until they reach a newsworthy amount, and at the same time, it will also make the chances of "lottery players" winning the jackpot even more slim.
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