Powerball going to South Africa

For the first time since it started operating the National Lottery, Gidani introduces a new game. Powerball, the biggest in the Lottery games mix joins Wina Manje (the scratch card game), Sportstake, LOTTO – up to now the ring leader, and LOTTOPlus becoming the fifth game in the South African National Lottery.

The launch of PowerBall marks the coming of age of the National Lottery of South Africa putting it in the big league, one of the greatest of the great worldwide offering mind-blowing super jackpots. On Friday, 16 October 2009, the people of South Africa will be able to play this superb mega game, the greatest in the Lottery world. Powerball is immensely popular in United Kingdom,(UK), Australia, Greece,the United States of America (USA) and New Zealand in keeping with international gaming trends where jackpots are gigantic and absolutely life changing.
PowerBall is a double matrix game designed to give Lottery players a chance to win astonishingly vast amounts of money. The price of a PowerBall board is the same as that LOTTO at R3.50. Gidani has produced new PowerBall game coupons that are now being delivered to all existing retailers. The new double matrix coupon has two grids. The first grid has 45 numbers and the second has 20. There are eight game boards on a Powerball coupon. This means that players select 5 numbers out of the 45 in the first grid and 1 number of the 20 in the second grid
There is definitely a sizeable market for PowerBall. Research confirms that multitudes of South Africans play overseas lotteries solely because of large jackpots. We will kick off with a guaranteed jackpot of R30 million for the first PowerBall Draw on Friday, 23 October 2009.
There are eight prize divisions in PowerBall as follows;
ODDS
Prize Divisions 5/45 + 1/20
5+1 24,435,180.00
5+0 1,286,062.11
4+1 122,175.90
4+0 6,430.31
3+1 3,132.72
3+0 164.88
2+1 247.32
2+0 53.47

The new super game will allow players to dream big and win big. Look at it this way, 42% of the prize pool generated for the game goes to the jackpot categoryn. The more the jackpot rolls over the larger the super jackpot prize. This is the biggest Lottery game globally. It catapults the South African Lottery industry into a new orbit.

The recently launched banking channels which give online bank customers, automatic teller machine (ATM) users and cell phone banking customers access to the Lottery products will not immediately carry PowerBall. It will be available through the banking channels later in the year.

On Draw nights PowerBall will have two sections both of which form an integral part of the game. There will be two draw machines, two ball sets and two draws. One machine will have 45 balls and the other 20 balls. During the draw 5 balls will be randomly drawn from the machine containing 45 balls numbered 1 to 45. The PowerBall is the sixth ball which will be drawn from the second machine containing 20 balls numbered 1 to 20.

We will be introducing our two brand new high power presenters in due course. The game will be broadcast live twice a week at 21h30 on Tuesdays and Fridays from the Red Pepper studios.
The Licence to Operate the National Lottery requires us to introduce new games throughout the Licence period. Gidani is launching PowerBall in fulfillment of its Licence commitment and with express government approval as required by the Lotteries Act as well as the Licence. This is also part of our renewal and repositioning programme. We are unfolding new innovations in the form of products and channels as we promised when we started operating in October 2007 when we kept everything that our customers were familiar with.
Of even greater importance to Gidani is the huge impact that this new double matrix game is going to have on beneficiaries of the proceeds of the National Lottery. It should never be forgotten that the primary reason for the National Lottery in South Africa is to generate substantial resources to address social and economic development, poverty alleviation and other deserving causes. Gidani as it has done since it took the brief to run the country’s Lottery will continue to contribute 34% of its revenue from the sale of Lottery tickets, including PowerBall, to National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF). In the nearly 2 years of its operation Gidani has remitted R2,5 billion to the Fund for distribution through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community based organizations (CBOs) and other relevant entities.

We expect that the 34% commitment will be much greater in rand terms than the present sums. Though the distribution of the financial resources falls outside the purview of Gidani’s operations, as the National Lottery operator we are concerned that this should happen efficiently and effectively to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. Gidani appreciates the work presently underway by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies and the National Lotteries Board (NLB) to address the governance and management processes and systems of the NLDTF and its distribution agencies to improve performance and accountability for the benefit of all concerned.

In addition to our contribution to good causes, to date we have, through existing games, created 200 millionaires to the value of R625 million. In that period 63.7 million winners have shared R1.37 billion. About R445 million has been earned by National Lottery retailers in commissions paid by Gidani – this is in the span of hardly 2 years of the current Licence. These numbers are going to be condiderably higher with PowerBall. It’s a whole new super ball game.

While Gidani employs 110 people directly, approximately 30 000 men and women are employed by retailers throughout the country as operators at the terminals handling Lottery customers. These people are formally trained and accredited. In the process of launching PowerBall we have trained, equipped and deployed 140 educators to conduct training and orientation over a 4 week period in all our 11 official languages covering approximately 30 000 persons. The course that we have designed for the purpose of PowerBall is Theta accredited and Seta aligned. The training is outcome based. All the staff of existing retailers will be accommodated in the training.

The Lottery industry is tightly regulated by the NLB making sure that the National Lotteries Act and provisions of the Licence are strictly adhered to. As an ethical and well governed National Lottery operator we work diligently to ensure that, among others, nobody under the age of 18 can participate in any way in the Lottery, that the retailers are all in permitted areas and are all fit and proper persons to be associated with the Lottery. As a condition of our Licence we have well structured and effectively applied programmes to prevent and eradicate excessive Lottery play or addiction. We regularly conduct formal research to make sure we comply without fail in this area. At the time of the launch of PowerBall, a research exercise is underway in respect hereof.
Traditionally, people in the higher income brackets with considerable disposable income constitute the majority of the occasional Lottery players who tend to play only when there is a large guaranteed jackpot. It is envisaged that the PowerBall marketing strategy will capture this segment of our market and make it part of the regular and loyal market base of PowerBall.

[Via Gidani]

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