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Why €500 a Week Can Beat €25,000 Once a Year

Why retention, not ticket selling, is the real driver behind a strong club lotto.

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Key Takeaways

  • €500 a week through a lotto or recurring draw generates €25,000 a year, and the recurring nature of that income matters more than the total, since it arrives regardless of results on the pitch, weather or volunteer availability.
  • A supporter on an auto-renewing subscription contributes 4.8 times more revenue per year than someone buying weekly cash tickets, making retention, not constant ticket selling, the real driver of growth.
  • A club's recurring supporter base can be bigger than its membership, including former players, parents, local businesses and supporters living abroad, all of whom can join instantly online without needing to buy a physical ticket.
  • Digital recurring fundraising removes most of the manual work behind cash-based lottos (distributing tickets, collecting cash, reconciling totals) and gives treasurers predictable income to budget against.
  • Oranmore Maree GAA grew weekly lotto revenue from approximately €500 to more than €1,000 after moving to ClubZap and focusing on recurring subscriptions rather than selling more physical tickets.

€500 a week beats €25,000 a year.

That's not a typo: it's the most important data point we see in club fundraising across over 1,000 clubs.

It can sound wrong until you do the maths…

A club generating €500 every week through a successful lotto or recurring draw raises €26,000 a year.

But the extra €1,000 isn't really the important part.

The important word is recurring.

Last week we looked at the ceiling of club fundraising: Dicksboro's €140,000 campaign. I also gave the warning that you can't run an event like that every year. So what fills the other 51 weeks? The recurring engine. The weekly lotto. The 50/50. The monthly draw.

It's the least glamorous fundraising a club does, and in our data it's the single clearest dividing line between the clubs stuck under €/£10 of fundraising revenue per member and the ones at €/£80+.

That money arrives whether your senior team is having its best season in a decade or fighting relegation. It doesn't depend on perfect weather for an event, a major sponsor coming on board or the same group of volunteers organising another huge fundraiser.

It gives the club something incredibly valuable: a financial engine that keeps running.

Stop Treating Your Lotto as a Weekly Ticket-Selling Exercise

This is one of the biggest differences we see between struggling and successful recurring fundraisers.

Struggling clubs tend to ask:

How many tickets did we sell this week?

Successful clubs increasingly ask:

How many recurring supporters do we have?

That's a fundamentally different way of looking at the same fundraiser.

If someone buys a cash ticket every Friday, your volunteers effectively have to win that €2, €5 or £5 again next week.

And the week after that.

A supporter on an automatic recurring subscription doesn't need to be resold every Friday. They're automatically included until they choose to stop.

That makes retention, rather than constant ticket selling, the real engine behind growth.

One Recurring Supporter Is Worth 4.8x More

The data across ClubZap clubs demonstrates just how important that distinction is.

A supporter on an auto-renewing subscription contributes 4.8 times more revenue per year than someone buying weekly cash tickets.

Think about what that does to the value of volunteer time.

An hour spent convincing supporters to buy individual tickets generates income today.

An hour spent getting supporters signed up to recurring payments can generate income throughout the year.

Sell once. Earn weekly.

That's a much more scalable model.

Your Lotto Audience Is Bigger Than Your Membership

There's another important point that successful clubs understand.

Your recurring supporters don't have to be registered members.

Your club's wider community might include:

  • Former players
  • Parents of former players
  • Grandparents
  • Local residents
  • Supporters living abroad
  • Local businesses
  • Friends and family of members

Someone may no longer play for the club or attend matches every weekend but still happily spend €5 or £5 each week supporting it.

Digital recurring fundraising makes reaching that audience significantly easier because participation doesn't depend on physically meeting someone selling tickets.

If they hear the jackpot has reached €10,000 while sitting at home, or while living hundreds of miles away, they can join from their phone

Let the Jackpot Do Some of the Marketing

A growing jackpot is one of the most effective marketing tools a club lotto has.

Every rollover creates another reason to talk about the draw.

But that only works if someone who sees the post can act immediately.

If entering requires finding a ticket seller or remembering to bring cash to the clubhouse three days later, you've introduced friction at exactly the wrong moment.

If someone can see the jackpot on social media, tap a link and subscribe within seconds, that attention can turn directly into recurring revenue.

The easier the journey, the more effectively the jackpot can work for you.

Less Pressure on Volunteers

Traditional cash-based lottos can require an enormous amount of invisible work.

Someone has to distribute tickets.

Someone has to collect them.

Someone counts the money.

Someone lodges it.

Someone reconciles everything.

Then the process starts again next week.

A digital recurring lotto dramatically reduces that workload.

There is still work involved. Someone needs to oversee the draw, publish results and keep promoting it.

But you're no longer rebuilding your revenue from scratch every seven days.

A small, efficient committee can manage a significant recurring fundraiser because the system is doing much of the repetitive work.

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Give Your Treasurer Something They Can Actually Budget With

For treasurers, predictable fundraising income changes the conversation.

If your club knows approximately how much its lotto generates each month, that income can start informing real financial decisions.

  • Equipment.
  • Coaching.
  • Facility costs.
  • Maintenance.
  • Development projects.

Instead of hoping a fundraiser performs well when money is needed, the club has a more predictable revenue base throughout the year.

Businesses obsess over Monthly Recurring Revenue for exactly this reason.

Grassroots sports clubs should understand the value of recurring revenue too.

From €500 to €1,000+ Per Week

Oranmore Maree GAA in Galway provides a great example.

The club moved its lotto to ClubZap in 2023 and focused on growing recurring subscriptions.

Weekly revenue increased from approximately €500 to more than €1,000.

That's an additional €26,000+ over the course of a year if sustained - without requiring another major annual fundraiser to generate it.

More importantly, the growth wasn't driven by asking volunteers to sell twice as many physical tickets every week.

It came primarily from building recurring participation.

Build the Engine Before You Need the Money

Recurring fundraising isn't as exciting as announcing a huge fundraiser or unveiling a major event.

That's precisely why it can be overlooked.

But if your club wants stronger finances, less pressure on volunteers and the ability to plan ahead, it's arguably the most important fundraising engine you can build.

So at your next committee meeting, don't only ask:

“How much did our lotto raise last week?”

Ask:

“How many recurring supporters do we have - and is that number growing?”

That is the number that can transform your club's fundraising over time.

Got questions? We've got answers!

Does a club lotto only work with registered members?

No. The audience for a lotto or recurring draw can include former players, parents, grandparents, local businesses and supporters living abroad, anyone with a connection to the club can join online without attending in person.

 
 
How does a digital lotto reduce volunteer workload?
Why is €500 a week better than €25,000 raised once a year?
How much more valuable is a recurring supporter than a one-off ticket buyer?