Review: Lottery Game
Publisher: Selchow & Righter
Year: 1972
Tagline: A get-rich quick game for all the family to enjoy!
how we met
I have mentioned before that I am a sucker for certain dated covers. I also have the soul of a gambler. And the box is pink. It was always going to happen.
how it plays
In Lottery Game, each player chooses a color and sits near that area of the board. The board has colored spokes going out of the middle with seven empty spaces represented by the letters L-O-T-T-E-R-Y. The second T in the middle says FREE. Yep, it’s bingo.
This is where the magic happens
Players get a whole bunch of small numbers matching their color on one side and white on the other. They choose six numbers – whatever numbers they like – and place them on their spoke in all spaces but the free space, white side up.
You choose from 18 numbers in your color
The game comes with a deck of cards. Those cards are shuffled very well and then a player acts as the reader and draws cards, reading them out loud one by one. The cards are essentially bingo numbers, so both the letter and number must be read.
E8. That is Echo 8
If you have a matching letter-number combo then you flip that card to the color side. This continues until someone gets bingo. That lucky player gets to spin the spinner and collect the amount of money they land on.
Play continues in rounds this way until one player has won $50 million.
how it went
This game is not linked anywhere because I can’t find evidence of its existence on most sites. Not on Etsy, not on eBay, not on BGG and not even on just plain google. It is a rare bird.
The luckiness of winning bingo does not always translate to luckiness in your spin. After I had won three rounds and landed on $1 million each time I was definitely discouraged. John was declared the winner at a little over $20 million if memory serves me.
It’s a long road to $50 million
Keri was the only saving grace in this game. She read the numbers ridiculously and turned her North-Central American English accent up to 11 (think Minnewegian). “L3. Does anyone have L3? Noh? Ohkay, let’s draw another one.” We are very lucky to have her.
Because you go through almost the whole deck every single time. It hurts so much.
play or pass
Pass. I carried this home with me that night just to take these pictures and warn you. I have not added this abomination to BGG because I am not certain that is the kind of legacy I want to leave. This one is as ungamely as they get.