Japanese Lottery

If you are living in Japan and have a lousy job that pays peanuts - or if you are an English language teacher at Nova not being payed at all, you need to either read my previous article on how to get a decent job in Japan or go for the lottery.

I think the format of the lottery here is the same in other countries - I remember the UK having this format. You get a machine readable bit of paper where you use a pen to etch in your wanted numbers.

Previous weeks numbers - for those who want to calculate and work out what this weeks numbers will be. A device to generate numbers when your birth date and door number dont seem to be getting results. Some Japanese lottery facts n figures below.

• You don't have to hit all numbers to get something - I think 3 numbers get you something like 1,000 yen.
• The lottery is so popular over here that you can even buy numbers at an ATM like Mizuho Bank.
• The largest payout that I have been able to look up so far has been 400,000,000 yen back in 2000.
• The money generated from the lottery business is usually allocated to the prefecture where the lottery was purchased which is why you may see "buy your lottery in Miyagi prefecture!" signs.
• There are other forms of lottery where you just buy a ticket which has a number on it - winning numbers are published on the net and newspapers.
• At the end of the year, the Japanese traditionally send a postcard to people they know as a new year greeting. Most of these postcards will have a lottery number.

Some lottery commercials below - love the sentai one ^^;