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The Lottery of Slovenia, the nation's leading organizer of classical lottery games was created in 1945 as the National Lottery. With a concession from the state, its basic goal was and still is the raising of funds for humanitarian and sporting organizations. With, of course, the wonderful bonus of making a few people very happy and very rich along the way. Each week on Sunday, the Lottery tries very hard to give away money to that lucky individual who has - by pure chance or perhaps due to some cosmic plan - correctly chosen the seven-digit combination that is drawn live on national television. Sometimes, however, the numbers that are drawn do not match the numbers on any of the tickets sold. So it was that for weeks on end, Sunday after Sunday, Slovenia held its breath, as the so-called "sedmica" was not drawn. The prize pool just kept on swelling, and still no "sedmica". The queues in front of lottery offices grew longer and longer each week, and still no "sedmica". When the pool reached 512 million tolars, everybody's ears were full of "If I win the lottery the first thing I will buy will be...". The country was in a state of frenzy. But this was not the first lotto-induced turmoil Slovenia has experienced: two years ago, in June of 2002, the correct seven-digit combination proved to be just as elusive as it was being this time around. And the enticement was even greater - a record-breaking 700 million tolars. The whole country went about buying lottery tickets, discussing money over coffee, watching that boring lotto draw religiously every week, forming syndicates in order to invest more money in tickets and thus better the odds of winning.... And then a combination was drawn that matched a sold ticket somewhere in Ljubljana. One lucky soul became a multimillionaire. And the fever died away. Until now, that is. Then history repeated itself. The mass hysteria and the unimaginable sum of money were once again the topics of long coffee breaks. And then, after fifty draws, with 884 million tolars paid in and with more than 9,294,740 combinations, "sedmica" was finally drawn. And this time not just one, but two tickets matched, one bought in Celje and the other in Kranj. Lotto fever has once again subsided, but won't it be fun when, due to the European Union, foreign lotteries with far larger prizes come to Slovenia?