Comment by Dr. Heinz-Georg Sundermann, Managing Director of LOTTO Hessen: "Never in our history have we made Hesse so happy".

That the Hesse are the "Euro jackpot cracker", therefore, results, because in the last year at the top five jackpot of the year three Hessian winners were there. On July 6, a pensioner from Frankfurt, together with a married couple from Saxony-Anhalt, bet on the seven correct numbers and ended the weeks-long hunt for the 90 million euros in the pot. For his two tips, the Frankfurt had spent only 4.50 euros and made it 45 million, the highest profit of the year. This continued in the summer, when a couple from the district of Gross-Gerau, together with a man from North Rhine-Westphalia, the 61 million euro jackpot divided and finally shared in November five winners, including a Darmstadt, again a 90 million euros heavier prize pool. All in all, 11 Hessians made the leap into the millions in 2018. They all came from southern Hesse.

The most popular product from LOTTO remains "6 out of 49". At around 278 million, the classic lottery game achieves the highest annual sales (42 percent), followed by the Euro Jackpot, Game 77 and Scratch Cards of the Instant Lottery.

From the beginning, not only the individual winners but also the common good benefited from the stakes of the Hessian Lotto Society in the 50s, primarily the club landscape through the construction of the football stadiums in the country. Today, the social sector, culture, preservation of monuments and the environment are among the beneficiaries.

The story of LOTTO Hessen began with a comparatively small product. On March 14, 1949, it started with the sports bet TOTO. Participants had to guess how the football matches run out of 14 teams, whether victory (1), defeat (2) or draw (0). The first rank with all the right predictions was filled twice, each winner received 9,650 marks. At Christmas 1949 there was a special draw with Christmas geese. A goose received, who typed the number of the given tip rows correctly. Later, cars, motorcycles, bicycles or homes could be won in the special draw programs. For example, a pretty little house waved for ten pfennigs, 50 of them were raffled between 1949 and 1954. Winning the 1954 World Cup in Bern boosted sales,

Even without Hessian participation, the first draw "6 out of 49" took place in 1955. Elvira Hahn, an orphan from a children's home in Hamburg, pulled the balls. "We had to put on clean knee socks, sandals and a skirt. The other children watched us and were a bit jealous, "said the 64-year-old today. The Hessen-LOTTO followed a year later, with 50 pfennigs one was there. However, millions of profits came only in 1975. Until then, there was a profit cap on 500 000 marks. Already in the first year the lottery missions exceeded the turnover of the firstborn TOTO.

Eight years later, the first television education started - live from the studio 4 of the Hessischer Rundfunk in the German living room. From 1967 Karin Tietze-Ludwig was Germany's lotto fairy. She remained there for over 30 years and counted the 365th Hessian lottery millionaire until Franziska Reichenbacher took over the draw in 1998 and is still practicing. It has so far selected 245 millionaires in Hesse.

Today, the processing of the tickets is digital, the profit analysis took over the computer. Here, Hessen played a pioneering role: digital signatures have since stamped and closed the entries for the closing date like a virtual safe. Currently the lottery ticket can be handed over to 2100 sales outlets.

Not always the profits are picked up. Big profits are held for three years, small profits come in special draws. Weekly sums total between 40,000 and 50,000 euros - up to 3 million a year.

Managing Director Sundermann believes in an outlook that the jackpot development will be as good this year as it was last year. "Our goal is to make at least 11 Hessians millionaires again in 2019 and to keep sales stable." And this is how the total of 70 years of LOTTO Hessen looks like: 610 millionaires, 11 billion in profit and 5 billion for the common good.

 http://www.frankfurt-live.com/erfolgszahlen-bei-70-jahre-lotto-hessen-110769.html