During the Soviet era, gambling was not welcomed, but this does not mean that it did not exist at all. The Sportloto lottery became the most massive and popular among the people - up to 10 million tickets took part in each draw, in general 70% of Soviet citizens were involved in the game! When interest in the lottery began to fade away, Leonid Gaidai's film Sportloto-82, which would now be called hidden advertising, was released on the screens. What was the secret of Sportloto's success, and why did the comedy, called by the critics a failure, become the leader of the box office?
70 percent of Soviet citizens took part in this lottery.
For a long time in the USSR, the attitude to all kinds of gambling and lotteries was unambiguous: these are remnants of bourgeois society, which have no place in Soviet reality! This attitude changed when Soviet sports required large financial expenditures in connection with the Olympics. To save money from the state budget, it was necessary to look for an additional source of income. The experience of foreign countries, including those from the "socialist camp", has shown that nationwide lotteries can be a significant help.
The emblem of the most massive Soviet lottery.
Deputy Chairman of the USSR Sports Committee Viktor Ivonin became the creator of the first Soviet lottery "Sportloto". He said: “Our main question was: to what extent do the lotteries correspond to the code of the builder of communism? The appearance of "Sportloto" was the answer: the game had a huge resonance, people responded, and the financial results were such that the Sports Committee finally abandoned budget money and completely switched to self-financing with the help of "Sportloto". This lottery, in fact, contained Soviet sports. " The first drawing according to the formula "6 out of 49" (it was necessary to guess 6 out of 49 possible numbers) was held on October 20, 1970 as an experiment, and this experiment was very successful! By the first circulation, it was possible to sell 1.5 million tickets worth 30 kopecks each. At the same time, 50% of the proceeds from the lottery were allocated by the state to finance sports,and the other half - for the payment of winnings.
Card * Sportloto *, 1970.
So that none of the Soviet citizens had any doubts that this was not just a game of chance, but assistance to sports, each lottery number was assigned its own sport, and famous athletes were invited to the draws. The initiator of the experiment, Viktor Ivonin, said: “We invited Elena Petushkova, the queen of equestrian sports, to one of the first TV shows (they appeared on the air since January 1974). The members of the drawing commission had to inspire confidence, so the presence of famous athletes who were respected by the country at the draws became an invariable tradition of Sportloto.
Since 1974, the draws have been held in the studio of the Central Television.
Promotional video:
The first winner of the maximum win was an engineer-economist from Moscow, who was lucky enough to guess all 6 digits out of 49 and get 5000 rubles - a huge amount at that time! Later, the maximum winning doubled - up to 10,000 rubles. According to the theory of probability, such a "jackpot" fell out one in 14 million combinations! The maximum winnings were received by no more than 10 people annually, but those who wanted to try their luck did not diminish from this - on the contrary, every year they became more and more. To increase the likelihood of winning and attract new “players”, we later launched a circulation with the formula “5 out of 36” - in this case, the probable combinations were reduced to 370 thousand options, and the chance of winning increased.
The lottery drum became the key to the transparency of the lottery winner selection procedure.
At first, the draws were held once every 10 days, and the participants learned their results from the newspapers. Over time, this game became more and more popular, and since 1974 circulations began to be carried out weekly in the studio of Central Television. This program was watched by everyone, even those who did not participate in the lottery. At first, a transparent drum was used for drawing, from which balls with numbers were manually removed, and later the design bureau of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR created for this purpose the first lottery drum in which the balls were mixed and selected mechanically, which eliminated possible suspicions of dishonesty.
The main part of funds for the Olympics-80 came from * Sportloto *.
On the eve of 1980, "Sportloto" became as relevant as possible - the USSR was preparing to host the Olympics, for which it was necessary to obtain large funds. It was then that the draws were introduced according to the lightweight formula "5 out of 36", and the number of participants in the lottery increased. As a result, a significant part of the Olympiad events was held with the proceeds from the lottery. And in just 20 years of its existence, "Sportloto" has brought the state 500 billion rubles! Georgy Kanukov, head of the Rostov department of Sportloto, said: “Our largest sports facilities were built with the money of Sportloto. A rowing canal and an Olympic reserve school in Rostov, an athletics arena in Shakhty, a swimming pool in Azov.
On the set of the movie * Sportloto-82 *.
After the Olympics, the slogan "You win, the sport wins!" became less relevant, and interest in the lottery began to fade. It was then that Leonid Gaidai started filming his new comedy "Sportloto-82" about an accidentally lost prize ticket. The script of the film was written in six months, the same amount of time was needed to finalize and approve the picture, and in the summer of 1981 the director began filming in the Crimea.
Movie posters.
Mikhail Kokshenov in the movie * Sportloto-82 *, 1982.
Still from the movie * Sportloto-82 *, 1982.
After that, millions of Soviet viewers again believed that, in principle, each of them could become the owner of a big win. When the film was released, many again began to buy lottery tickets, while often choosing the same combination of numbers that the main character of the film crossed out on the ticket - from 1 to 6.
Still from the movie * Sportloto-82 *, 1982.
On the set of the movie * Sportloto-82 *.
Still from the movie * Sportloto-82 *, 1982.
Now this film is called the hidden propaganda of the lottery, as well as the most talented and inventive Soviet advertising. They said that Leonid Gaidai, in addition to the fee for the work, received 100 lottery tickets from the Sportloto directorate for explicitly advertising the lottery. True, the critics called this film a failure: Gaidai was accused of making a potpourri of his own comedies: “And here, well, everything is just a bit familiar - the plot, characters, tricks … So why did Shurik name Kostya, and the captive - Tanya? Why did he invite new actors - after all, the old ones coped with their duties?.. It turns out that cinema is the same lottery for the viewer. There are many hopes every time, and the gain - if it is not accidental - is rather rare. And in this case, alas, we were again out of luck - the ticket turned out to be "empty". Nevertheless,the film was a huge success among viewers - then it became the leader of the film distribution in 1982, 55.2 million viewers watched it! Perhaps the key to his success was not only the director's loud name, but also the topicality of the topic itself - after all, almost everyone played this game at one time.
Mikhail Pugovkin in the movie * Sportloto-82 *, 1982.
Movie poster.