The humble tombola helps lotteries make millions

May 26, 2012 - PRLog -- The tombola is similar to bingo, it first originated in Southern Italy. The name comes from the Italian “tombolare” meaning to tumble or fall. Numbers are placed in a barrel or revolving drum and ‘tumbled’, the raffle tickets are individually numbered and correspond to the prizes on display.

People are not trying to win a specific prize; with tombola they have the opportunity to win any of the prizes on display.

Once a winning ticket is drawn, that number is removed from the container and put to one side, at the end of the raffle, all prizes will have been allocated.

One way in which tombolas can raise more money is by offering strips of tickets in bulk at a discount, so purchasing five tickets may be offered at a lower price per ticket than if just one ticket is purchased on its own. This appeals to the psychology of the player who may well believe they have a greater chance of winning a prize by buying several tickets because they believe the odds of winning are greater; they also may believe they are getting a bargain by obtaining the discount, even if they’ve ended up spending more money than they first intended!

Enter the online world. Tombolas are now to be found online and there are some truly amazing prizes. Companies offering prizes have a cheap way to promote and advertise their products, cost of entry is low and entrants can play from anywhere in the world.

Traditionally, tombolas are part of fetes and found at funfairs and village fetes and other community based events. Only non profit organisations are allowed to hold tombolas. In the UK, for example, and they are often use to get around the licensing laws as alcohol can normally only be sold in licensed premises such as pubs, clubs and bars in the UK. The laws do not apply to alcoholic beverages offered as a prize in a raffle and as bottles of wines and spirits are traditionally quite high value items to buy, so they make popular prizes.

National lotteries are also a form of tombola where entrants buy a ticket to enter the lottery and insert numbers of their choice. On draw night, the numbers are displayed on ping pong balls for example which are tumbled in a drum and automatically randomly generated to fall out of the drum one by one until the maximum number is reached, these form the winning line. Because the odds of winning are astronomically high – sometimes in the millions – the monetary prizes to be won are equally mouth-wateringly high and many hundreds of millionaires have been created as a result since the inception of national lotteries.

From the simple concept tombolas have become a fun and inherent part of our daily entertainment.

One of the leading tombola websites is http://www.tomby1000.com with some truly amazing prizes ranging from well known brand names such as Apple, Dyson and Rolex and with prizes to be won every few minutes, it is a site that’s attracting a great deal of attention.