How Lottery Tickets Are Helping People Save Money Justin Boyle - MoneyBlueBook.com
go to original April 16, 2014

National Lottery building located on Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. (Wikipedia)

Imagine this: You walk into a credit union to open a savings account, and the teller responds by selling you lottery tickets.

Odd as it may seem, this type of scenario plays out all over the world. They're called prize-linked savings accounts, and a few states in the U.S. are making use of them to give residents a little extra incentive to put money away for a rainy day.

A long history

Prize-linked savings accounts might seem like an innovative concept, fresh off the desk of some ground-breaking personal finance start-up founder, but the truth is that they've been around longer than the United States itself. In 1694, to help defray debt incurred during the Nine Years' War, officials in England instituted a public investment program that offered substantial lottery prizes to around 2.5 percent of investors (and an APY of 6.15 for 16 years, believe it or not).

Modern savings lotteries tend to offer a less enticing ROI, but they certainly haven't disappeared in the centuries since that first example. A 2002 survey showed prize-linked savings and investment instruments active in Spain, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Kenya, Pakistan, Argentina and other nations at various times since 1990.

Read the rest at MoneyBlueBook.com

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!