In the packed municipal hall in the town of Bruguières, on the outskirts of Toulouse, a cry broke the studious silence in which the nearly 300 participants were immersed. “Here !” Virginie exclaims, raising her hand quickly. With this gesture, the forty-year-old stops the listing of the lottery numbers drawn from the stage by the organizer of the game. Less than five minutes after the start of this fifth round, the player made a “full card”. By completing, by pure chance, her entire grid, she wins one of the most anticipated prizes of the day: an “Easter special” garnished basket, filled with different meats – including the traditional leg of lamb – , bottles of wine and aperitif products. Around her, many neighbors heave a sigh of frustration… Many were “one number away” from winning this precious food boost, particularly popular in this period of inflation.
Virginie is radiant. In the previous round, his luck also allowed him to win a major brand coffee machine, accompanied by several dozen pods. “My fill of shopping for the week is done, and what’s more, I’m having fun!” she confides before slipping away for a cigarette break. At the entrance to the room, she must make her way between the dozens of players who came, during the intermission, to buy new grids offered at half price or exchange their cards, deemed “unlucky”. Here, superstition goes hand in hand with the pleasure of the game: on the large white Formica tables, dozens of charms have been arranged by participants of all ages. On the same row there are virgins of Lourdes, plastic cows or lucky figurines, silently watching over the lotto cards. “I never part with this one. It was my son-in-law who gave it to me on the day of my stroke,” confides Marielle, fiddling with a frog-shaped bean.
Several times a year, this mother takes part in lotteries organized by local associations, in the hope of multiplying the sum initially invested in her grids – sold between 3 and 20 euros – by winning a watch, a connected tablet or the famous flat screen highlighted at the entrance to the room. But, in recent months, the lots that tempt her the most remain the food baskets, country hams weighing several kilos, or even a few vouchers for supermarkets in the region. “At the moment, it’s sometimes more interesting than certain electronic devices that we don’t really need,” she sighs. A few tables further, Carole confirms. “We come for the pleasure of the game, but also for the winnings which can help improve everyday life. More and more young people are here for that: when we see the price of meat, the legs of lamb and hams are a pleasure!” she says, laughing. Asked about the best prize won in twenty years of lotto, the enthusiast does not hesitate for a second before answering. “It was a 200 euro voucher for a supermarket which allowed me to do my shopping.”
Carole and Valérie, work colleagues who became friends, have been playing the lottery together for twenty years.
© / The Express
“Make the deal of the year”
Franck Jouvin, who organizes this type of associative lottery six times a year for the city’s basketball club, has seen his audience’s expectations evolve on the subject. “A board of cheese or charcuterie, Easter chocolates or a good bottle are sometimes more appealing than a gift card for the local hairdresser. People also look a lot at the value of a good: the goal is to bet around ten euros to leave with the brand, which is worth three or four times more,” he says. The success of this “quest for a good deal” continues unabated. “There are dates, like the 1st of the year, when we even have to open the adjacent room, with a queue of several meters,” assures the organizer, delighted – each of these events allows the club to earn “around 2,000 euros”, and in particular finance the players’ travel to departmental or regional competitions.
This taste for the lottery is far from being limited to the town of Bruguières: every year, the Lotopassion site counts around 150,000 lottos organized throughout France, for an average gain of 100 euros per winner. A figure that has been “stable for around ten years”, for an activity that is “inexpensive, fun and in which everyone can participate”, summarizes Morgane Dantan, marketing manager of the site. According to her, the real evolution lies not so much in the number of players, but in the profile of those who, each year, pass through the municipal halls in order to fill out cardboard grids. “Sixty-year-olds who were looking for social connections are today accompanied by forty-year-olds looking for purchasing power, which was not the case five years ago,” she adds.
For Pascal Duchemin, sociologist specializing in consumption, the inflationary context has a lot to do with it. “Today there is a kind of fascination with winning, the good deal, the good deals. In times of economic tension, people do not want to sacrifice their playful pleasure and try to find solutions to gain a lot by investing a minimum, as can be the case in the lottery,” he explains. Roger Kempf, who organizes each year one of the biggest national lottos, in Pontivy, in Brittany, for the benefit of the local football club, is the first observer: “After Covid, we saw more and more people arriving young people, families who came to try to win the jackpot… What motivates them is the desire to do the deal of the year!” There is something to be tempted: during the lottery organized on March 24, the club won nearly 90,000 euros in winnings for its players, offering the big winners a converted van, a car, a quad, or even a trip worth 2,000 euros. “Of course the gifts are nice, but this lottery is also the event of the year for certain families, who travel miles to get there and spend a little time together. It’s the first advantage of this type of events”, underlines the organizer.
An “anti-bling-bling leisure”
In Bruguières, Marie-Josée, Gisèle and Jeannette, all three retired, arrived at 1 p.m. to play belote before the lottery started at 3 p.m. Every Sunday, this ritual allows them to “clear their minds”, to meet other residents, and to repeat their favorite phrases, heard from their mothers and grandmothers before them. “80, in the corner. 13, Sainte-Thérèse. 75, Les Parigots!” Jeannette responds to each new issue launched by the organizer. “It’s tradition, there are dozens of them, little proverbs like that,” laughs Marie-Josée, forty years of lottery under her belt. “Even if I don’t win, that’s what makes me look forward to Sunday,” she says, pointing to her group of friends.
Mickaël and Maëlle come to reiterate the traditions learned from their grandparents, this Monday, April 1, in Bruguières.
© / The Express
“The lotto is reassuring, because it is a fun, known, partly controlled universe, where there is no fuss or elitist side, as we can see in other games of chance, notably at the casino “, analyzes Jean-Pierre Martignoni, sociologist specializing in games of chance and recreational practices. “We are in an anti-bling-bling, intergenerational, traditional leisure activity, with a very important social role and power of transmission,” he adds. In the middle of the room, the presence of a couple in their twenties confirms his intuition. “We played with our grandmothers, we saw them with their charms or their lucky numbers… So we do the same!” confides Maëlle, who is betting everything on the 17th, her birthday. In the next round, it is finally No. 80 who comes out of the plastic urn first. “In the corner,” replies a good part of the room in unison.
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