The Isle of Wight Lottery is the first lottery in England to be developed specifically to create employment opportunities. Your £1 a week isn’t just a great way of winning prizes – you’re also continuing to support creating and sustaining jobs on the Isle of Wight.
The Isle of Wight Lottery was incorporated in 2000 and continues to be based in Newport. The lottery fund has provided interest free loans to more than 100 Isle of Wight businesses and created or sustained thousands of jobs.
The Isle of Wight Lottery is promoted by The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Opportunity Society Limited, which is operated on a strictly “non-profit” basis.
It costs £1 per week to enter and there’s no restriction on the number of times you pay to play each week. You will receive a unique personal number, which remains with you for as long as you continue to play.
In a typical week (49 weeks of the year) there are 11 winning numbers drawn, with a single £1,000 prize and a further 10 prizes of £100. For two weeks of the year a single prize of £5,000 is awarded. In one week a prize of £10,000 is awarded. A total of 542 prizes are awarded each year.
Every week all of the active Isle of Wight Lottery player numbers are drawn from a secure database and entered into the Lottery’s specially designed computer system. Winning numbers are generated individually and completely at random. Every lottery draw is attended and signed off by an independent person.
In the last financial year, we received £208,864 in income
More than 50% was paid out in prizes - £120,100
A minimum of 20% of our income goes to our good causes which in the last financial year amounted to £41,773.
The remainder of our income covers our administrative costs of running the lottery and good causes.
The Isle of Wight Lottery has two Good Causes.
Our first good cause is Island businesses that need funds to help them grow and create or sustain jobs. The Isle of Wight Lottery provides interest free loans to new and expanding businesses. The lottery was established specifically to assist entrepreneurs who have had difficulty accessing finance through traditional methods. The lottery's Loan Fund offers interest free loans to Island entrepreneurs who can borrow up to £50,000 to invest in their business provided that the expansion will create jobs or sustain employment.
Our second good cause is the work that the Isle of Wight Chamber does to support new and growing businesses on the Island. The Chamber helps to nurture new start-ups and newly self-employed people by providing opportunities and advice, regardless of whether the businesses are Chamber members or not. With free-to-attend courses designed to help you Start Your Own Business and one-to-one mentoring the Chamber provides a unique “first step” for fledgling businesses. The Chamber’s Expo is the biggest business networking event of the year and it is free to attend for all businesses, providing a crucial opportunity for new start-ups to engage with the wider business community. The Chamber’s Island Business magazine also covers businesses of all sizes and sectors.
By playing the Isle of Wight Lottery you are helping to support Island businesses, protecting local jobs and helping to create new opportunities and employment. By providing interest free loans to businesses along with a package of free-to-access opportunities, the Isle of Wight Lottery and the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce offers a unique helping hand to local businesses. In these challenging times it's a definite win for everyone.
When you sign up to pay £1 a week to play the IW Lottery you will automatically be given a number. This will be your unique number and it will be entered into the draw for as long as you continue to pay £1 a week. If you want to pay £2 a week you will be allocated two numbers, and three numbers for £3 a week etc etc.
Your number will be activated as soon as payment is received and processed by Lottery HQ.
We will contact you by phone if you win a prize. Our winning numbers are published every Friday in the Isle of Wight County Press, Isle of Wight Observer and Island Echo. You can browse the list of unclaimed winning numbers on our website.
We will contact you by phone if you are a winner, so please make sure we have your current telephone number and (ideally) your email address. To get in touch with Lottery HQ you can call us on 01983 529888 or email us at lottery@iwchamber.co.uk
