EUROPEAN STATE LOTTERIES AND TOTO ASSOCIATION

Instant Lotteries
Finland
Veikkaus has a total of seven instants
in the low and regular price categories.
They cost e1, e2, e3, e3.50, e4.50 and
e5. Next to that line of instant games,
Veikkaus decided to experiment with
scratch-off tickets in the higher-price
range between 1985 and 1988. The
Double Instant game, launched between
2 Sept 1985 and 30 Aug 1986, provided
instant cash prizes under the scratch surface,
together with weekly draws and a
jackpot of FIM 1 million (e168 188, corresponding
to e285 247 at present-day
rate). The price of an individual ticket
was FIM 50=e8.41 (e14.26 at presentday
rate). The Mother’s Day Instant and
the Olympic Instant (different tickets for
the winter and summer games) were on
sale between 20 Apr 1987 and 9 Oct 1988,
each of them being seasonal instants.
They cost FIM 50 per ticket (=e8.41;
e13.77 at present-day rate).
After these experiments, Veikkaus
only introduced a more expensive instant
game for Christmas 2007. It was
launched as an alternative to the original
Christmas Instant that costs 5 Euros and
had become a popular scratch-off game
for Finns since 1995. The 2007 Christmas
Calendar Instant cost e10.
The 2007 Christmas Instant, which belonged
to the higher-price category of
e10, did not fulfil our expectations,
since the tickets printing was done too
late in the season and didn’t allow us to
Veikkaus Oy / Finland:
Different price categories for scratch-off tickets
apply foil on them. Also, the timing of the
weekly additional draw and the related
main draw proved us wrong. We should
have had the main draw only after Christmas.
“The additional draws were strongly affected
by the fact that they were made
public in pre-recorded TV shows,” says
Veikkaus Product Manager for Instant
Games, Riitta Mesilaakso-Lehtola.“
We have now learnt from our experience,
and this year we will schedule the draws
differently,” she says. “The high price did
not seem to be an obstacle to buying for
most of the players. Instead, the problem
was that the tickets were hard to distinguish
from the other instants because
there was no foil printing on them. It was
the intended different print design that
was meant to attract people’s interest,”
continues Riitta Mesilaakso-Lehtola.
The prize distribution in the Christmas
Instant focuses on small prizes, in order
to allow as many people as possible, who
have purchased a ticket or received one
as a gift, to gain something and have a
chance to experience the joy of winning.
The jackpot of the additional draw
was and will be fairly large, e100 000.
Veikkaus applies its largest prize payout
percentage – 60 percent – to the Christmas
Instant game. With the rest of the
tickets, the payout percentage varies between
45 and 60 percent.
7
P AN RAMA
”Veikkaus is not planning to eliminate its
inexpensive line of instant tickets. On
the contrary, as time seems to be getting
tougher in the economic sense and
consumers are becoming more and more
careful with their spending, we still need
to offer tickets that don’t cost much,”
analyses Mesilaakso-Lehtola.
Veikkaus will launch another 10 Euros
Christmas Calendar Instant for Christmas
2008. The Christmas Instant is a seasonal
ticket and is sold only before Christmas.
The game is based on the traditional advent
calendar, known to everyone, which
makes it easy for the consumers to play.