What are the charity lotteries in the Netherlands?

People who participate in charity lotteries have a chance to win money when they buy lottery tickets. Certain charity lotteries in the Netherlands donate extra money to projects because they often get extra funding from the lottery. This extra funding helps them carry out more projects with more confidence.

There are many lotteries run by different organisations. These include the Dutch Lottery with the State Lottery; Lucky Day; the National Postcode Lottery; Toto; the Friends Lottery Charity Lotteries; Scratch Cards; and the Fairshare Dutch Lotteries. These include Much Luck and Zorg-a-Lot.

Charities in the Netherlands receive 10% of their income from lottery proceeds. This is due to the fact that a large proportion of lottery sales are allocated to their cause. Many different charities receive this money, including arts, culture, animal welfare, health and sports. Moreover, these sales fund international aid and cultural causes.

The government plans to introduce a new law to enable online gambling. This could potentially reduce revenue from ticket sales for charity lotteries. Moreover, this could reduce the amount of money currently available for charitable donations, as tickets bought for a charity lottery are not tax-deductible.

What do lotteries contribute to charities?

The Dutch Lottery today publishes its annual figures and announces the amount of its annual distribution. For the year 2021, the Dutch Lottery will transfer a record €18.8 million to Dutch sports, 18 charities and society for a happy, healthy and sporty Netherlands. Moreover, over 2,467 million euros in prize money was paid out to our players in 2021 - the highest amount ever.

For the year 2021, Dutch Lottery remits the following amounts:

NOC*NSF: 50.4 million euros
18 charities: 19.2 million euros
State of the Netherlands: 118.4 million euros