A man picks numbers for the "SuperEnalotto" state lottery at a betting shop in Milan, Aug. 6, 2009. (Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

Lottery mania in Italy

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What would you do to win a $200 million jackpot: fly from Germany? pick a number based on dreams about dead people?

By Eric J. Lyman — Special to GlobalPost

Published: August 20, 2009 15:48 ET
Updated: August 20, 2009 15:58 ET

ROME — For the 86th time since January, none of the tens of millions of lottery tickets sold for Italy’s SuperEnalotto matched the six numbers needed to win the record purse, swelling the jackpot to $208.6 million Thursday and no doubt pushing Italy — and much of Europe — even deeper into the grips of an unusual kind of lottery fever.

Already the largest ever jackpot in Europe (it surpassed a $179 million prize awarded in Spain in May), the SuperEnalotto prize, which grew $4.3 million on Thursday alone, is inching toward becoming the largest jackpot anywhere when taking account of the tax-free status of Italian lottery prizes. A 2007 Megamillions payout of $390 million in the United States netted the winner $223 million after taxes. Lottery officials predict the world record will be broken by the end of the month unless anyone wins before then.

Notwithstanding the 622 million-to-one odds against winning, the enormity of the jackpot is not lost on participants. The number of tickets sold for the three-times-a-week drawings has nearly tripled compared to pre-record jackpot levels, totaling about 275 million per week. And they’re coming from everywhere: a group of 140 Germans has been taking advantage of discount airfares to fly to Milan every other day to buy tickets. Sellers near Italy’s borders with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia have reported a surge in sales from would-be millionaires crossing their respective borders. Passengers on cruise ships docking in Italian harbors are foregoing shopping and sightseeing to wait in line to buy tickets. The Italian press has even reported that celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Naomi Campbell have been spotted filling out the SuperEnalotto forms for a chance at the grand prize. Lines to buy tickets in some urban areas have stretched for city blocks.

Everyone’s looking for an edge to win.

“I had to turn down an invitation to a new program that wanted me to go on the air to explain which numbers were most likely to win,” said Luca Tardella, a statistics expert with Rome’s Sapienza University. “I told them that no specific number was more likely than any other number, but they refused to accept that.”

Tardella said that old-time Italian superstitions are coming into play. In these superstitions, certain information revealed in dreams is translated into specific numbers to be played. If the dream has an element of fear, for example, the player should bet on number 90. Number 47 is the one to play if a dead person speaks in the dream and number 34 is the number to bet on if the dreamer reacts stubbornly to the information revealed in the dream.