Health Lottery branches out with German lottery game
Richard Desmond-owned operator follows casino and bingo launches with new product based on German lottery results
The Health Lottery has soft launched its new Health Jackpot game based on German lottery results, continuing its recent efforts to diversify its product range.
Health Jackpot enables players to bet on the outcome of Germany’s 6/49 lottery with prizes ranging from £8 for matching three main numbers to an estimated jackpot of more than £7.5m for correctly predicting all six main numbers and the ‘star number’ between zero and nine.
Customers can play in the traditional way by purchasing a line of numbers for £1.50, or pay £2.50 to purchase a share in a syndicate of 100 lines. Players are allocated into syndicates randomly, with the total prize money divided equally per syndicate share.
The launch comes just a month after the Richard Desmond-owned operator entered the UK online bingo market despite many bingo operators bemoaning a lack of growth and market saturation.
Casino games were added to the Health Lottery’s website last year and the operator was also granted an online poker licence in June 2012, however no such product has been released as yet.
The new Jackpot product has some similarities to the Health Lottery’s partnership with Coral, which saw the operator manage to avoid restrictions on jackpots and offer customers the chance to win up to £1m by placing bets on the outcomes of their own twice-weekly draws in Coral shops or via the Coral website.
That deal caught the attention of the UK Gambling Commission, which held talks with Coral to ensure it was clearly distinguishing the difference between placing a bet and buying a lottery ticket.
Recent reports have suggested Desmond is interested in selling the Health Lottery with a target price of more than £100m and potential suitors are thought to include software supplier Playtech and Malaysian businessman and Cardiff City chairman Vincent Tan.