Cup sweep opens next week

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33003, 24 August 1972, Page 1

Cup sweep opens next week

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 23. Tickets in New Zealand’s first racing sweepstake will go on sale on Monday and the lottery will be drawn on the morning of the day on which the New Zealand Cup is run at Riccarton —Saturday, November 4.

The major prize winners would be decided by the race result. the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Highet) said today.

Tickets will ■ be available from all agencies which normally retail Golden Kiwi ' and Mammoth lottery tickets. Only 150,000 tickets will be available. Normally 250.000 tickets are sold in Golden Kiwi and Mammoth lotteries. The prize-winning numbers iwill be selected by “Elsie,”

the electronic random number selecting device which is used in Dunedin by the Post Office for monthly bonusbond draws. The draw would be made after the official scratching time had expired at 7.30 a.m., Mr Highet said. After this time each horse remaining in the field would be treated as an official starter even if for some exceptional reason any were subsequently withdrawn from the race.

“Elsie” will be programmed to produce in sequence a list of ticket numbers corresponding to the number of official starters in the race, and then the consolation prize winners. The names of the horses remaining in the race will later be coupled with the appropriate ticket numbers by means of a separate ballot. For the purposes of the lotterv. brackets appearing in the official race card will not apply; each horse in the race will be represented by a separate ticket number. The 150,000 tickets in the

sweepstake will each cost $5 and purchasers are offered a one-in-48 chance of winning a prize with each ticket. The major prizes will be paid according to the placings determined for the payment of dividends on the day of the race.

The top prize is $200,000 for the holder of the ticket drawing the winning horse. Second, third and fourth prizes will be $50,000, $20,000 and $5OOO and each remaining ticket holder who draws a horse will receive $l5OO. There will be 10 consolation prizes of $lOOO, 20 of $5OO, 100 of $2OO, 200 of $5O and 2750 of $2O. All are cash prizes and will be paid in full regardless of the number of tickets sold in the lottery. On the morning of the draw only the numbers of the tickets which will be represented by the horses starting in the race will be supplied to the commercial network of the N.Z.B.C. and the other news media. People

who hold these tickets will at this time know that they are represented by a starter in the race but there will be no public dissemination of their noms-de-plume or any other identifying detail until after the result of the race has been confirmed by the club, and the dividend bearing horses and minor placings have been posted. Full details of the prize winners will be made known to the news media in the same way as is now done for the Golden Kiwi and Mammoth lotteries. As is customary, there will be a lapse of a few days before the full official results are published. Tickets for New Zealand’s second sweepstake—which is to be based on the 1973 Auckland Cup to be run on January I—are expected to go on sale soon after tickets in the New Zealand Cup sweepstake are exhausted. This lottery will be conducted on similar lines to the New Zealand Cup lottery.