Receipt Lottery

There is a magical thing that happens every two months in Taiwan: the receipt lottery. Basically, for no extra money and very little work, you are given a chance to hit the jackpot. Let me explain...

Every receipt in Taiwan contains an 8 digit number at the top, and every two months six numbers are drawn. Three of these are grand prize winners giving the lucky receipt holder 2 million Taiwanese dollars ($US62,000). For the other 3 numbers, if your last 3 digits match you get $200 ($US6), if your last 4 digits match you get $1,000 ($US31), $4,000 ($US125) for 4 digits, $10,000 ($US312) for 6 digits, $40,000 ($US1250) for 7 digits, and $200,000 ($US6,240) for all 8.

So every time you go to the store and buy anything from a bottle of water to a chocolate bar to a big mac to a beer, you are giving yourself a shot at winning big. And let me tell you with kinder chocolate available in the stores here, I hit 7-11 pretty frequently. I have been keeping my receipts in a big wad in my desk drawer, and had over 50 from the month of December alone.

Outside some of the stores downtown are men who beg for receipts instead of money as people walk out the door. Some stores also have boxes where you can put your receipts so any winning money goes to charity. The government started the receipt lottery as a way to encourage stores to keep their sales on the books, and thus allow the government to tax them. So really it creates a win win situation, where the government gets more money and hopefully I do too.

Last night before I checked my receipts I sat around dreaming about what exactly I would do with $62,000. I settled on a combination of sweet travel adventures and plane tickets for friends to come with me. I didn't actually win any money, but I am hopeful for the next drawing, and I already have a nice stack of receipts from January ready to go!

The top of all receipts here look like this. The 11-12 means it's in the drawing from Nov and Dec. It says 98 because Taiwan uses a different calendar. Last year was 98, and this year is 99...99 years since the founding of the Republic of China.

My receipts from the month of December