International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation
Encyclopedia
The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF) was a government authorised and state controlled charitable foundation that operated Internet lotteries. The ILLF pioneered Internet gaming, having launched the web's first online lottery, PLUS Lotto, in 1995 and processed the first online gaming transaction
ever. The ILLF supported charitable causes in Liechtenstein, many of which support projects in poorer nations internationally. The ILLF filed for bankruptcy
in September 2011.
Internet lottery, without international marketing restrictions, was obtained from the Liechtenstein
government. The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF), a charitable foundation, was formed to operate this lottery, then called Interlotto, and it quickly established its position as a leading e-commerce site in Europe. The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF) also introduced the first instant scratchcard
games on the Internet during this time.
The first Interlotto ticket was sold to Mario Frick, the Prime Minister of Liechtenstein (December 15, 1993 - April 5, 2001). The first Interlotto draw took place at the Köfferli bar in the quaint capital of Vaduz, Liechtenstein on the Saturday evening of 7 October 1995. Caroline Burdet http://www.lotto.li/skeleton/gallery.html, Liechtenstein's first Olympic bobsledder, drew the winning six numbers for what is billed as the first nationally sanctioned lottery on the Internet.
Fourteen months later, on 13 January 1997 the lottery site was renamed from Interlotto to PLUS Lotto following an agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), one of the world's best known and most respected humanitarian organisations, whereby the IFRC would become its major beneficiary
. The first draw under the PLUS Lotto name took place on 18 April 1997.
(EEA) and United Nations
, is a small country located in the heart of Europe, between Switzerland and Austria. This Principality
is a stable, constitutional hereditary monarchy
operating on a democratic and parliamentary foundation. Liechtenstein has served to be a prime locality to operate a lottery as besides offering political and economic stability
, having very high due diligence
standards, and enjoying a AAA-Rating
from Standard & Poor's
it has a well established lottery law which provides a strongly regulated, first-world jurisdictional environment for the lottery.
of Liechtenstein to operate its lotteries. The license was highly regulated, with government appointed auditors (Thöny Treuhand AG, Vaduz)http://www.toendury.li auditing the ILLF books of account and overseeing all aspects of the operations including scrutinization of lottery pre-draw and draw procedures. This includes all lottery games as well as the instant win games.
The ILLF's partners were credible and well known:
Thawte
http://www.thawte.com certifies the ILLF sites to guarantee personal information such as credit card
details is protected and securely processed.
The larger Jackpot
prizes were insured through R K Harrison Group Limited http://www.rkhis.com, a Lloyd's broker, to ensure guaranteed Jackpot prize payouts.
Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG http://www.llb.li/llb/llb.nsf/PageId/home_en held the player funds from transactions made on all the ILLF operated sites to assure funds were securely held and paid out to players. Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, a AAA rated bank, is predominately owned by the Principality of Liechtenstein.
to fund causes in Liechtenstein and around the world. All donations are made at the discretion of the Charity Allocation Committee which is controlled by the Liechtenstein government.
All sites now redirect to the main ILLF home page, discussing the reasons for the filing of bankruptcy.
The Prize Pool for the 6/49 lottery draw was 90% of the value of the ticket price. The allocation is as follows:
The overall odds
of winning any prize were 1 in 6.63.
The Prize Pool for the Little Big One draw was 80% of the ticket price. The allocation is as follows:
The overall odds of winning any prize were 1 in 4.27.
(the days when the Sun is directly above the Earth's equator
and day and night are about the same length everywhere in the world). In 2010, this was on January 22, February 22, March 22, April 20, May 20, June 21, July 20, August 20, September 22, October 22, November 22 and December 22. There were only 2,000 ticket numbers offered in each draw. The purchase price of a complete Ticket Number is EUR 45. Each Ticket Number consists of 3 Shares. The purchase price of a Share is EUR 15. Players can choose to purchase a complete Ticket Number and/or up to 3 shares, depending on the number of shares already sold in the ticket. It was a raffle
style draw with a Prize Pool worth up to EUR 45,000.00 and up to 565 cash prizes were awarded.
The odds were 1 in 3.54 to win a prize and 1 in 5.45 to make a profit.
Financial transaction
A financial transaction is an event or condition under the contract between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment. It involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals.-History:...
ever. The ILLF supported charitable causes in Liechtenstein, many of which support projects in poorer nations internationally. The ILLF filed for bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in September 2011.
Chronology
In early 1995, executives of London Mall, a British software developer conceived the idea of an Internet lottery. A license to run a fixed oddsOdds
The odds in favor of an event or a proposition are expressed as the ratio of a pair of integers, which is the ratio of the probability that an event will happen to the probability that it will not happen...
Internet lottery, without international marketing restrictions, was obtained from the Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
government. The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF), a charitable foundation, was formed to operate this lottery, then called Interlotto, and it quickly established its position as a leading e-commerce site in Europe. The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF) also introduced the first instant scratchcard
Scratchcard
A scratchcard is a small card, often made of thin paper-based card for competitions and plastic to conceal PINs, where one or more areas contain concealed information which can...
games on the Internet during this time.
The first Interlotto ticket was sold to Mario Frick, the Prime Minister of Liechtenstein (December 15, 1993 - April 5, 2001). The first Interlotto draw took place at the Köfferli bar in the quaint capital of Vaduz, Liechtenstein on the Saturday evening of 7 October 1995. Caroline Burdet http://www.lotto.li/skeleton/gallery.html, Liechtenstein's first Olympic bobsledder, drew the winning six numbers for what is billed as the first nationally sanctioned lottery on the Internet.
Fourteen months later, on 13 January 1997 the lottery site was renamed from Interlotto to PLUS Lotto following an agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), one of the world's best known and most respected humanitarian organisations, whereby the IFRC would become its major beneficiary
Beneficiary
A beneficiary in the broadest sense is a natural person or other legal entity who receives money or other benefits from a benefactor. For example: The beneficiary of a life insurance policy, is the person who receives the payment of the amount of insurance after the death of the insured...
. The first draw under the PLUS Lotto name took place on 18 April 1997.
Where is Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein, a member of the European Economic AreaEuropean Economic Area
The European Economic Area was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement between the member states of the European Free Trade Association and the European Community, later the European Union . Specifically, it allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to participate in the EU's Internal...
(EEA) and United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, is a small country located in the heart of Europe, between Switzerland and Austria. This Principality
Principality
A principality is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess, or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince....
is a stable, constitutional hereditary monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
operating on a democratic and parliamentary foundation. Liechtenstein has served to be a prime locality to operate a lottery as besides offering political and economic stability
Economic stability
Economic stability refers to an absence of excessive fluctuations in the macroeconomy. An economy with fairly constant output growth and low and stable inflation would be considered economically stable. An economy with frequent large recessions, a pronounced business cycle, very high or variable...
, having very high due diligence
Due diligence
"Due diligence" is a term used for a number of concepts involving either an investigation of a business or person prior to signing a contract, or an act with a certain standard of care. It can be a legal obligation, but the term will more commonly apply to voluntary investigations...
standards, and enjoying a AAA-Rating
Credit rating
A credit rating evaluates the credit worthiness of an issuer of specific types of debt, specifically, debt issued by a business enterprise such as a corporation or a government. It is an evaluation made by a credit rating agency of the debt issuers likelihood of default. Credit ratings are...
from Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's is a United States-based financial services company. It is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks and bonds. It is well known for its stock-market indices, the US-based S&P 500, the Australian S&P/ASX 200, the Canadian...
it has a well established lottery law which provides a strongly regulated, first-world jurisdictional environment for the lottery.
Regulation
The ILLF was licensed by the governmentGovernment
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
of Liechtenstein to operate its lotteries. The license was highly regulated, with government appointed auditors (Thöny Treuhand AG, Vaduz)http://www.toendury.li auditing the ILLF books of account and overseeing all aspects of the operations including scrutinization of lottery pre-draw and draw procedures. This includes all lottery games as well as the instant win games.
The ILLF's partners were credible and well known:
Thawte
Thawte
Thawte Consulting is a certificate authority for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa and is the second largest public CA on the Internet.-Origins:...
http://www.thawte.com certifies the ILLF sites to guarantee personal information such as credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
details is protected and securely processed.
The larger Jackpot
Progressive jackpot
A progressive jackpot is a jackpot for a gaming machine where the value of the jackpot increases a small amount for every game played...
prizes were insured through R K Harrison Group Limited http://www.rkhis.com, a Lloyd's broker, to ensure guaranteed Jackpot prize payouts.
Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG http://www.llb.li/llb/llb.nsf/PageId/home_en held the player funds from transactions made on all the ILLF operated sites to assure funds were securely held and paid out to players. Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, a AAA rated bank, is predominately owned by the Principality of Liechtenstein.
Charity
An integral part of the International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation (ILLF) was its focus on charities. All the lottery sites in the ILLF network set aside a portion of revenueRevenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
to fund causes in Liechtenstein and around the world. All donations are made at the discretion of the Charity Allocation Committee which is controlled by the Liechtenstein government.
ILLF Network
The ILLF operated many websites, referred to as the ILLF brands. Combined, these brands offered a wide array of games to choose from.- World Lotto Corporation
- Lotto.li
- PLUS Lotto
All sites now redirect to the main ILLF home page, discussing the reasons for the filing of bankruptcy.
Games
Several games operated under the ILLF brands:- Lotteries
- Instant Win Games
- Scratchcards
Weekly 6/49 Lottery
In every lotto draw, six numbers plus one bonus number were drawn from a range of balls numbered 1 to 49. Players choose six different numbers plus a bonus number by a method of their own choosing. Prizes were awarded for matching two, three, four, five or six numbers as well as five plus the bonus ball and six plus the bonus ball.Draw
The 6/49 lottery draw was conducted every Friday at the ILLF's studio in Liechtenstein and is scrutinized by an auditor from Thöny Treuhand AG, Vaduz. Draws were performed using one of two mechanical ball machines manufactured by Editec (France). Prior to the draw a ball set was selected at random and test draws were carried out to ensure that the machine and ball sets have not been tampered with. After the draw an independent program is run by the auditor and the results compared to the database to verify that the data is correct and there are no errors. The draw was filmed and then made available via the Internet.The Prize Pool for the 6/49 lottery draw was 90% of the value of the ticket price. The allocation is as follows:
- 2% for a 6 number match, plus bonus ball
- 8% for a 6 number match
- 10% for promotional incentive prizes
- on average 2% for a 5 number match, plus bonus ball
- on average 4% for a 5 number match
- on average 7% for a 4 number match
- on average 30% for a 3 number match
- on average 37% for a 2 number match
| Match | Prize | Odds of winning (1 in) |
|---|---|---|
| 6 of 49 and bonus ball | 20,000,000.00 | 601,304,088 |
| 6 of 49 | 2,000,000.00 | 14,316,764 |
| 5 of 49 and bonus ball | Pro-rata share of the remainder of the Prize Pool | 1,179,027 |
| 5 of 49 | Pro-rata share of the remainder of the prize | 56,812 |
| 4 of 49 | 120.00 | 1,032 |
| 3 of 49 | 30.00 | 56 |
| 2 of 49 | 5.00 | 7 |
The overall odds
Odds
The odds in favor of an event or a proposition are expressed as the ratio of a pair of integers, which is the ratio of the probability that an event will happen to the probability that it will not happen...
of winning any prize were 1 in 6.63.
Little Big One
Little Big One was a weekly lotto where 5 from 15 balls are drawn. Each ticket contains 5 numbers chosen from 15. There were a maximum of 3003 tickets available in every weekly draw. There were three prize categories to be won, including winning for matching zero balls. Since each ticket number is sold only once, winners do not share prizes. The Jackpot is a guaranteed EUR 2,003.00 per week. The weekly draw was an automated draw using a certified Random Number Generator. The draw took place in Liechtenstein every Wednesday at 11h00 CET but occasionally, due to a "Must be Won Jackpot" feature of the LBO game, could occur earlier.The Prize Pool for the Little Big One draw was 80% of the ticket price. The allocation is as follows:
- 27.79% for a 5 number match
- 49.95% for a 3 number match
- 20.98% for a 0 number match
- 1.28% for promotional incentive prizes
| Match | Prize (EUR) | Odds of winning (1 in) |
|---|---|---|
| 5 of 15 | 2003.00 | 3003 |
| 3 of 15 | 8.00 | 6.7 |
| 0 of 15 | 6.00 | 11.9 |
The overall odds of winning any prize were 1 in 4.27.
Equinox Lottery
The Equinox Lottery was a monthly lottery with draws occurring every month on the same date as the next EquinoxEquinox
An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator...
(the days when the Sun is directly above the Earth's equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
and day and night are about the same length everywhere in the world). In 2010, this was on January 22, February 22, March 22, April 20, May 20, June 21, July 20, August 20, September 22, October 22, November 22 and December 22. There were only 2,000 ticket numbers offered in each draw. The purchase price of a complete Ticket Number is EUR 45. Each Ticket Number consists of 3 Shares. The purchase price of a Share is EUR 15. Players can choose to purchase a complete Ticket Number and/or up to 3 shares, depending on the number of shares already sold in the ticket. It was a raffle
Raffle
A raffle is a competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each ticket having the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn from a container holding a copy of every number...
style draw with a Prize Pool worth up to EUR 45,000.00 and up to 565 cash prizes were awarded.
| Divisions | Prize (EUR) | Odds of winning (1 in) | Number of winning tickets | In order to win |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 45,000.00 | 3.54 | 565 | Any Prize |
| 1st | 18,000.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| 2nd | 750.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| 3rd | 600.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| 4th | 450.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| 5th | 300.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| 6th | 135.00 | 2,000 | 1 | Match all 5 in order |
| Sub | 180.00 | 2,000 | 2 | Nearest number to 1st prize |
| Sub | 180.00 | 2,000 | 2 | Nearest number to 2nd prize |
| Sub | 180.00 | 2,000 | 2 | Nearest number to 3rd prize |
| Sub | 17,820.00 | 20.2 | 297 | First 3 Digits of 1st, 2nd & 3rd |
| Sub | 3,420.00 | 105.3 | 57 | Last 2 Digits of 1st, 2nd & 3rd |
| Sub | 2,985.00 | 10.1 | 199 | Last 1 Digit of 1st |
The odds were 1 in 3.54 to win a prize and 1 in 5.45 to make a profit.
Instant Win Games
PLUS Lotto offered a variety of online instant win games. The player could win up to EUR 10,000.00 instantly.Scratchcards
PLUS Lotto offered seven online scratchcard games. Each scratchcard ranges from a cost of EUR 1 to EUR 7. Prizes up to EUR 100,000.00 could be won.External links
- The International Lottery in Liechtenstein Foundation website - explains the reasons for filing bankruptcy.