Lottery Bond
Encyclopedia
Lottery Bonds are a type of government bond
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

 in which some randomly selected bonds within the issue are redeemed at a higher value than the face value of the bond.

They are government bonds and only issued by a government
Government
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...

. They have been issued by France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, the UK and the other major nations of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Outwardly, lottery bonds resemble ordinary fixed rate bond
Fixed rate bond
In finance, a fixed rate bond is a type of debt instrument bond with a fixed coupon rate, as opposed to a floating rate note. A fixed rate bond is a long term debt paper that carries a predetermined interest rate...

s; they have a fixed, though usually long, tenor and pay regular coupons. The individual bonds within each issue are numbered, like ordinary bonds, but the serial numbers serve a different function from ordinary bonds. For a lottery bond the serial number is an added incentive for the purchaser to buy the bond.

Although the details vary by bond and by issuer
Issuer
Issuer is a legal entity that develops, registers and sells securities for the purpose of financing its operations.Issuers may be domestic or foreign governments, corporations or investment trusts...

, the principle remains the same. A drawing takes place according to a schedule to decide which serial numbers are to be redeemed. The individual bonds within the issue thus identified by the drawing are then bought back by the issuer, so that the total value of an issue will decrease as time passes and more bonds are redeemed.

However there is a further complication; occasional bonds will receive a bonus. A small number of bonds are redeemed for an amount greater than their face value. Hence the holder of that particular bond will have won the ‘lottery’.

Example

If the government of Belgium issues a 10 year lottery bond to finance re-gilding the Atomium
Atomium
The Atomium is a monument in Brussels, originally built for Expo '58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by André Waterkeyn, it stands 102 metres tall...

, the issue may consist of 10,000 individual bonds with a face value of EUR 1,000. The coupon rate is reasonable to attract investors, but not high. However, the issuer has committed to redeem 5,000 of the 10,000 bonds issued before the bond’s maturity date and has further committed to redeem 120 of these at a redemption value of EUR 1,250.

This means that any purchaser of a single bond for EUR 1,000 will receive annual interest a little above the bank rate, but will also have a 1.2% chance of winning an additional 25% of his original investment.

So the issuer borrows 10,000 * 1,000 EUR which is 10 Million Euros. It will repay 120 of those bonds at 1,250 EUR which is equal to 150,000 EUR and a further 9,880 at 1,000 EUR (9,880,000 EUR) making a total of 10,030,000 Euros, or 100.3% of the original borrowing. The issuer will also pay interest on any unredeemed bonds.

Purpose

Lottery bonds are usually issued in a period where investor zeal is low and the government may see an issue failing to sell. By knowing ahead of time when the coupons will be paid and how many bonds will be redeemed at the original value and at the lottery value, the issuer can value the bond accurately and know ahead of time the cost of the borrowing.

The purchaser, however, is subject to the element of chance, as it is not known in advance which actual bonds will be redeemed at either value, nor when. This element of chance appeals to a section of society who will take a lower guaranteed return in the hope of a windfall.

UK Premium Bonds

The government of the UK offers a variation on the standard Lottery Bond. Through the NS&I (National Savings and Investment), the public can purchase Premium Bond
Premium Bond
A Premium Bond is a lottery bond issued by the United Kingdom government's National Savings and Investments scheme. The government promises to buy back the bond, on request, for its original price. They were introduced by Harold Macmillan in his 1956 budget....

s worth £1 each, with a minimum spend of £100 (or £50 if paying by monthly standing order). The maximum (as of the 2007 tax year) that an individual can hold is £30,000.

The bonds themselves attract no interest, are perpetual and are redeemable at par (face value) at any time. The attraction for an investor is that, each month, a draw takes place and, should an investor hold one of the bond numbers chosen, then the bond-holder will be awarded a prize of variable value.

As of July 2007, there were two £1 million prizes awarded each month, plus over 1 million smaller prizes ranging in value from £50 up to £500,000. All prizes are tax free and, with approximately 23 billion bonds issued, the chances of any one bond winning a prize for that month are approximately 24000 to 1. However, it is important to recognise that, on winning a prize, the bond is not redeemed but remains 'in the pool' for all forthcoming draws.

The prize fund is paid for out of the equivalent interest payable on the entire bond pool for that month. As of July 2007 this is 3.80%. A bond holder with a sufficiently large pool of premium bonds could hence reasonably expect to achieve this type of return should he hold his bonds for long enough.

Although riskier than a typical European bond, the UK Premium Bond offers the chance of enjoying a significantly larger windfall.

External links

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