The Olam
Institution / Public-benefit body

Mifal HaPais

Israel's national lottery and state-licensed public-benefit institution. Founded 1951. Distributes substantial proceeds to community infrastructure, education, and health facilities.

Mifal HaPais is Israel's national lottery and a state-licensed public-benefit institution. Founded 1951. Operates the principal Israeli lottery games and distributes a substantial share of net proceeds to public works — primarily community infrastructure, education, culture, and health facilities — across Israeli municipalities.

Mifal HaPais operates under license from the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Its public-benefit structure routes a defined share of lottery revenue into a grant-making operation that funds construction and equipment for community centers, schools, libraries, sports facilities, hospital wings, and cultural institutions. The grant-making operation is one of the larger non-governmental funders of Israeli public-purpose construction.

Mifal HaPais also administers the Toto sports-betting franchise (through a related structure) and operates within the Israeli regulatory and competitive landscape that distinguishes state-licensed gaming from prohibited private gaming activity. The institution's combination of consumer gaming product and large-scale civic grant-making is structurally distinct from for-profit lottery operators in most other markets.

Read Next in The Olam

  • Bituach Leumi (National Insurance Institute) — A different Israeli state-licensed public-benefit body
  • Hospital Innovation Arm — Recipients of Mifal HaPais hospital-facility grants
  • Amuta — The Israeli nonprofit-association legal structure used by many Mifal HaPais grant recipients
  • Israel Free Loan Association (Gemach) — Adjacent Israeli civic-funding mechanism
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