Lotto 6aus49 in Brandenburg

Brandenburg is unremarkable in Lotto terms: €42 per capita, rank 7 out of 16, right in the middle. A number you might scroll past, if there were not another finding that turns the picture around.

People in Brandenburg have more disposable income per capita than people in Berlin. That is not a hunch, but statistics: in 2023, disposable income per capita was €26,440 in Brandenburg and €26,209 in Berlin, according to the official figures from the Berlin-Brandenburg statistics office. Brandenburg had already overtaken Berlin for the first time in 2018, as documented by Berliner Sparkasse in its economic analysis.

If you also factor in regional cost-of-living differences, especially the much lower rents in Brandenburg, the picture shifts even further in Brandenburg's favour. In 293 of Germany's 400 districts and cities, disposable income in 2021 was above Berlin's level, and in the commuter belt around Berlin, real incomes are almost everywhere higher than in the federal capital.

Despite this better income situation, Brandenburg spends less than half the federal average per capita on Lotto. As a share of disposable income, Brandenburg is even the third most restrained state at 0.16 percent. The typical Brandenburger invests a smaller share of income in Lotto than almost any other German.

Anyone who does hand in a ticket in Brandenburg funds a special feature: the state is one of those that distribute Lotto money through ministries, not through an independent foundation. Brandenburg's interior ministry uses a substantial part of its lottery funding for fire and disaster protection, especially for recruiting volunteers for fire brigades. If you play Lotto in Cottbus, you are quite likely also funding youth work for the fire brigade in the next village.