People's Postcode Lottery: Rules, Price & Odds

How to Play People's Postcode Lottery

As the name suggests, this lottery is targeted to the people of the UK, supported by the people of the UK. It's a subscription-based lottery, one of the primary distinctions from other ones.

Since 2005, People's Postcode Lottery draws have been happening every month. As you may already know, a portion of any lotteries earnings goes into charity. For this one, it's 33% of the ticket sales every month. Twenty charities benefit from the incentive. You can find the complete list of charities on the lottery website.

As it's a luck-based activity, there's an element of gambling. So, the People's Postcode Lottery is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission in Great Britain. Gambling Commission also vets the random number generator used for draws approved testing houses!

You already know that it's a subscription-based lottery program. So, you'll first need to sign up on the website and connect a payment method. Credit cards are no longer a valid method as the government restricts credit card usage for gambling payments. You can still use debit cards, Direct Debit, and PayPal.

Every month, the tickets you purchase become eligible for all draws. If you haven't guessed from the name already, the winners are decided on their postcode. You'll get a unique number that works as the identifier for "your" ticket within the postcode on your ticket.

Rules of People's Postcode Lottery

For anything good to happen in life, you must adhere to rules. Especially when it comes to lotteries, there must be ground rules to operate the whole thing smoothly. Luckily, People's Postcode Lottery has a very informative website with everything you need to know. In the following sections, we'll highlight the most important pieces of information for your convenience.

Odds to Win the Prizes

Unlike casino games like online roulette or blackjack, there's no way to calculate the People's Postcode lottery odds. Because there's no way to determine how many postcodes will enter and how many tickets will sell. The only thing close to calculating the odds you can do is check out the previous month's results. You can get an idea of how many playing postcodes won a prize.

For example, in 2021, more than 77% of the people who bought at least one ticket won prizes. It includes all the different prize pools like the Daily Prizes, Weekly Prizes, and Postcode Millions.

Price of People's Postcode Lottery Ticket

As you already know, the People's Postcode Lottery is not a traditional ticket-based lottery. Rather, it's a subscription-based lottery where you pay for the tickets each month in advance. For that to happen, you must be at least 18 years old and be a citizen of the UK.

If your documents checkout through the KYC process, you'll have your account on the lottery website ready to go. Then, you can purchase up to 3 subscriptions for a single month. Each subscription costs £10. So, you can spend up to £30 on lottery draws every month.

You already know that you can get debit cards by Direct Debit and PayPal for the subscription. For debit cards and PayPal, you'll need to manually claim the prize by providing your bank account details to the lottery office.

The drawings are held every single day of a month. The prices for the draws are automatically calculated during the draw. If you're not sure where your money went, you can check the draw prizes individually on the website. But remember, 33% of the price goes to charity instantly.

The interesting thing with People's Postcode Lottery is that you win more as you buy more subscriptions. Your winnings can be 3x the normal amount as long as you live in the winning postcode! Wondering how that happens? Then, keep reading because we're about to explain the entire price structure of the lottery in the next section!

People's Postcode Lottery Jackpot

A "jackpot" prize is often considered the crème de la crème of lotteries. Thankfully, there's a jackpot prize in the People's Postcode Lottery called the Postcode Millions. The prize draw for Postcode Millions is held once a month. The winning postcode gets a massive jackpot of £3 million or even more! It's an estimated jackpot, so the actual value will vary based on how many subscriptions are active.

The prize money is then disbursed among all the playing tickets in that postcode. In retrospect, everyone who bought at least 1 subscription is a winner in that area. As the prize is evenly distributed, you increase your payout percentage by buying more than one subscription.

But that's not even the end of the awesomeness of this lottery program. Every Saturday and Sunday, there are Street Prizes draws. Every time a postcode wins, all playing tickets get £30,000 each! Yes, you read that right. It's not a shared prize. If 100 people buy tickets from the winning postcode, they win £30,000!

The same goes for the Daily Prize. This is similar to the street prizes where every winning ticket wins £1,000 each every day! It runs from Monday to Sunday, basically every day of the week. The great thing is that 20 postcodes are eligible for this £1,000 payout every day!

Biggest Win Made

The minimum baseline for the People's Postcode Lottery is £3 million. So, pretty much all Postcode Million draws have gone over £3. While it usually is a little over £3 million, the biggest win has been a whopping £8.4 million.

The prize was shared by over ten ticket buyers from Rochester, the ME3 7QL postcode. The individual prizes did vary a little. 9 out of 10 people bought one ticket only, and they got £342,375 each. The remaining person who bought two tickets got a massive £684,750 payout.

Results of People's Postcode Lottery

If you want to know whether your ticket has been won or not, your only option is to look on the "Lottery Results" page. The draw for Postcode Million is held on the last day of the month.

You can also search for your postcode directly to check whether you've won or not. The page lets you sort the list of winners by Postcode Millions, £30,000 Street Prizes, £1,000 Daily Prizes, and recent winners.

We didn't like the People's Postcode Lottery because you can't watch any of the draws live. The live draws have always been a major part of online lotteries as it helps the participants trust the system. On the bright side, the regulation for the United Kingdom Gambling Commission and the RNG testing from a 3rd party assures the fairness of the draws.

How to Claim People's Postcode Lottery Prizes

It would help if you won it first to claim a prize from the People's Postcode Lottery prizes. As the draws are held pretty much every day of the month, it might not always be possible for you to keep track of the results.

The lottery authority has decided to notify the winners by emails, SMS, phone calls, or letters to tackle this problem. We like the website is the emphasis on responsible gambling and verification. It advises that you shouldn't trust any call claiming to be from the Peoples Postcode Lottery blindly.

Rather, you should ask the agent to state your ticket number, player reference number, and the first draw date. If the caller is actually from the Postcode lottery, they will have answers to all of these questions.

Following the same method, the People's Postcode Lottery people will ask questions to verify your identity. If you win the Street Prizes or the Postcode Millions, the lottery office will call you directly. The Daily Prize winners will be notified by post. There's no explicit need for claiming the prize as it will be transferred to your bank account within 28 days. If you use PayPal for the subscription, the authority will call you to get the bank details.

Taxes of These Prizes

All lottery winnings in the UK are tax-free. As the People's Postcode Lottery is also a lottery, you don't need to pay anything in taxes when you receive your prizes. The only instance where you need to pay taxes in the UK is if your lottery winnings have an interesting element. Thankfully, that's not the case for the People's Postcode Lottery.

Our Opinion on People's Postcode Lottery

If contributing to good causes means something to you and you want to test your luck simultaneously, it doesn't get any better than the People's Postcode Lottery. You can eliminate the traditional approach of buying tickets every time there is a draw. For a mere £10 a month, you can participate in all the draws throughout the month.

People's Postcode Lottery FAQs

We've covered everything that matters for the People's Postcode Lottery. If you still have questions, see if any following matches them.