Bingolotto

In January 1989, Bingolotto premiered and Olsson introduced the game show to the people in the Gothenburg area. The programme became very popular in this area and 10,000 lottery tickets were sold to every episode between 1989 and 1991. In the autumn of 1990, the game show's owner and C.E.O. Gert Eklund started his collaboration with TV4 to start broadcasting the show nationwide. Olsson, who had built the game and company together with Eklund in 1988, owned a 25 percent share of the game but was bought of the company in 1999.

On 19 October 1991, Bingolotto premiered nationwide on TV4 with the popular Leif "Loket" Olsson as show host. The premiere episode was watched by 1.3 million viewers in Sweden, a very high and surprising viewing figure. From October 1991 to March 1992, Bingolotto had raised viewing figures from 1.3 million viewers to 2.1 million viewers. The success of the show was positively associated with the popularity of host Leif "Loket" Olsson.

In 1992, Loket received the television award The Lennart Hyland TV Prize for Best Male Show Host of the Year. Loket received this prize again in 1994 and 1997. In 1993, Loket received the prize "Årets Göteborgare" (Gothenburg Citizen of the Year).

In 1994, Olsson attracted 3.5 million viewers to watch every single program throughout the whole year, a record-high viewing figure. In 1995, Olsson attracted 4.5 million viewers to every programme, the highest viewing figure that has been registered in Swedish TV.

In 1999, Olsson left the show and was replaced by Lasse Kronér. The viewing figure crashed immediately down to only 900,000 viewers per programme and the viewers and fans of the show wanted Loket to return. In January 2004, Kronér was fired and Loket was asked to return briefly to fill in for him.

The price of the lottery ticket has been between 25 and 50 Swedish kronor, and in March 2005, one billion tickets had been sold since the beginning. The surplus is given to Swedish sport associations, a fact which is commonly believed to have increased the penetration of the show. 31.5 million Swedish kronor (approx £2.5 million) is the highest won prize ever in the history of Bingolotto. It was won by a woman from Vara, Sweden.

Leif "Loket" Olsson hosted the show from 1989 to 1999 (and for a short period in 2004). Since Olsson's retirement, the show has been hosted by entertainer and musician Lars Kronér, skiing athlete Gunde Svan, and TV-personality Rickard Olsson, of which none has been able to maintain the show's earlier popularity. A significant rise in popularity developed when the singer Lotta Engberg took over the hosting in fall 2008. From fall 2011 is the show hosting by Jan Bylund. Fore beginning the program shows in TV4, after 2008 the program is on TV4 Plus. On 12 September 2011 change the channel name to Sjuan (The Seven). In August 2015 was the program back on TV4 with Ingvar Oldsberg as host.

Clips from Bingolotto are featured in the video of Madonna's 1998 song "Ray of Light", directed by Swede Jonas Åkerlund.[2] and in the 1998 film Show Me Love. In both cases clips from the period when Leif "Loket" Olsson hosted the show were used.

A UK version was also produced, see BingoLotto (UK). Both TV programs have had as media consultant professor Charlie Medina.

The programmes contains music pauses, where an artist or group appears. During the Leif "Loket" Olsson leadership era, Bingolotto was strongly dominated by dansband music. Later, other popular music also has become more common.

• Bingolotto (Norway), the Norwegian version

• Bingolotto at IMDb
• Official website