Londoner launches his own online lottery that makes people happy… and £50 richer

 
Winner: Chris Holbrook’s idea is set to earn him up to £100,000 this year
Lucy Tobin28 August 2014

The creator of a free online lottery has given away more than £25,000 in three years with a website that he says is “raising two fingers at the gambling industry”.

Chris Holbrook, from Finsbury Park, was working as a web developer when he heard a BBC Radio 4 report about the NHS “postcode lottery”. The phrase sparked an idea for an advertising-funded Free Postcode Lottery.

After thinking about it for three years, he said: “I realised I’d become that person who would sit in the pub talking about their ideas, not actually doing them. So I spent a weekend coding a website and built it.”

When the site launched in 2011, users entered their email address and postcode and checked the site for the chance to win a daily jackpot of £10. But since entries spiralled — there are now 35,000 — Mr Holbrook now pays out £50 a day, funded by advertising on the site. He says a registered postcode is drawn, on average, every three days, with a rollover rule meaning each winner tends to pocket £150.

Mr Holbrook says the website brought in only “beer money” until January, but its popularity now means he is set to earn between £50,000 and £100,000 this year.

However, he hasn’t yet quit his day job as a freelance web designer because his wife is expecting a baby girl in December. He added: “People get suspicious about my motives. Someone accused me of being a front for MI5, and everyone thinks I make loads of money on the side by selling people’s details on, but I don’t. I only ask for an email address and postcode …  if I started asking more questions to sell the data, it wouldn’t work.”

“The original idea wasn’t to make people happy, it was to see if my website would work, but I get an added bonus because of the amazing feedback I receive — one winner who won £400 recently gave half to his friend who reminded him to check the site. Another who won £40 a few years ago emailed to say she had been really depressed and had not left her house for weeks but the prize had helped perk her up and got her out. The lottery is almost accidentally making people happy.”

The website is not regulated by the Gambling Commission because it is free to enter.

“It’s just random money-giving, gambling,” says Mr Holbrook. “I’ve never bought a lottery ticket in my life — this whole idea is two fingers up to the gambling industry.”

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