I know people in the neighbourhood/street I was born, who still live there (well over 50 years in the same house) who bought the postcode lottery tickets since forever, 12x a year, never won anything; this year it fell in the adjacent area code... It must hurt.

What does it mean - adjacent area code? They can’t play anymore?

It means they nearly won but sadly didn't. So close yet soo far away.

In the Dutch postcode lottery, they draw a random postcode (roughly a street) and everyone that lives there and has a ticket wins. The wider area code (village level) win smaller prizes.

People get FOMO - what if my neighbors become millionaires but I didn't have a ticket?

And in this case, some code very close to theirs won. It makes it seem you missed out by a tiny margin.

Seems a clever marketing tactic to rope in more people.

How do you confirm address? ‘I moved home to my parents last week’ etc.

You have to buy a ticket - presumably you have to commit to an address somehow at that point, so people can only buy for one postcode even if they're lying. Unless there's a skewed outcome that shouldn't really matter. (And if there is a skewed outcome...the people who'd bought the winning postcode and didn't have a house on that street would be under heavy scrutiny!)

Apparently, at least in NL, you can buy for different postcodes even though most do not.