Good causes lottery

3.7 million Dutch households take part in good causes lotteries. The entrants are found in all walks of life. Good causes organisations are another important group of tradition bearers. They receive half of the revenue of the lots sold to those entrants. As the entrants are not united, the branch organisation of the good causes, Goede Doelen Nederland  (Good Causes the Netherlands), has assumed the heritage care. For this purpose they closely cooperate with the three good causes lotteries in the Netherlands: the National Postal Code Lottery, The Friends Lottery and the BankGiro Lottery.

With the establishment of the Generality Lottery in 1729, the combination was made of a lottery and a good cause, in the modern country of the Netherlands. Whereas at the time the cause was to fight the plague, nowadays the focus is (still) on social purposes like health, culture and sport. From the very beginning shared lots were used for playing, because for many people the lots were too expensive. In 1905 the Lottery Act stipulated that a lottery should have a national interest. This was because several cities maintained very old, local lotteries (sometimes from the fifteenth century) and the authorities wanted to regulate these. For a long time lotteries have been the domain of the State and benefited the national Treasury. Only once in a while a good cause was chosen, like during the reconstruction period. In 1974 the Gaming Act regulated that a lottery could be played for a good cause. The introduction of the Postal Code Lottery in 1989 gave the present form of good causes lotteries a running start. Since then the development of the form of expression, the game-form, the prizes and the marketing have kept evolving.