Are you a lottery dupe?

[meic]

In that scenario plod would probably insist on having their bribe in hard currency, like Euros.

[Postboxer]

It's a tax on hope though, people know the chances of winning are very very slim but someone wins, you've got to be in it to win it and it's nice to dream about and 'plan' what you would do if you did win. Putting the money into a savings account is more useful for most people but a lot of people would dip into the savings every month so they would never have a 'win' of a decent size in there.

Back to the original story about scratch cards being sold when the jackpots have gone, it kind of seems fair to me, it's part of the game, the odds are fixed to the number of scratchcards made, the profits and prizes etc calculated on them selling all of the cards, surely it's obvious when you buy it that the winning card might have gone already or might be in the shop at the other end of the street or the other end of the country.

I only play Euromillions occasionally, when the jackpots get really big or when they do special bonus draws with more raffle prizes, playing online as that way you can't lose your ticket and they email you if you win, checking the unclaimed prizes on the website, there are currently 10 prizes of £1 million unclaimed in the last 6 months, not including the last few weeks of draws. Buying the tickets in the shops means you're in it to win it but also have to check your numbers and have to check the raffle numbers too. Someone in the UK won £76 million last night.

Having said that I am getting a bit annoyed by all the gambling adds on TV proclaiming things along the line of 'every minute someone wins £1000' without having to tell us how many people are losing money every minute, or telling us how much they are 'winning'.

[ambodach]

The only gambling I do is Premium Bonds. I have a small win nearly every month and the average over a year is a decent rate of interest by present standards. But the chance of a bigger win is always there. Biggest I got was £600 one month.

[RickH]

The only gambling I do is Premium Bonds. I have a small win nearly every month and the average over a year is a decent rate of interest by present standards. But the chance of a bigger win is always there. Biggest I got was £600 one month.

I've had some premium bonds that were bought for me when I was little. I'll be 60 next month & have never had a penny in "winnings" from mine!

[Cugel]

"Gambling is a sin!" This is what I exclaim to all those who try to flog me a raffle ticket or some other punt-fodder. The more seriously dangerous kinds of gambling used to be illegal too, once upon a time when the law still had something to do with morals rather than just the making and keeping of money.

Gambling creates addicts, with all the attendant misery and crime not just for the addicts but for their families, neighbours and wider society. It also creates greedy rich bookmakers and similar proto (or actual) criminals who employ their ill-gotten gains to wreak other havocs and nastiness.

Gambling normalises the notion that it's fine to have huge rewards for no effort and at the expense of many others. No wonder the grossly unfair property laws, the City slickers and the rentiers economy are so rarely questioned, eh?

If you gamble habitually and with no attention paid to the various outcomes (your own penury and degradation as well as that of others caught by the filthy practice) then you are a degenerate gambler. Of course, if you win you will be a happy degenerate. ... But no, you won't even achieve that since many of the "winners" become even more degenerate, degraded and finally very unhappy indeed.

Cugel

[Mick F]

Anyone who gambles must be aware that the bookie always wins.
One-arm bandits always win.
Littlewoods and Vernons always won.
National Lottery always wins, as does the Euro Lottery.

Mugs game.
Put the money you would gamble into a savings account instead.

Not always, but they do work terribly hard to ensure that's the case, up to and including banning the particularly successful and sophisticated punter.

What people don't always appreciate is that the odds offered don't in any way represent the chance of an event occurring, rather they are the odds that the bookie has calculated will give them a return on their book.

My paternal grandfather won £10grand on the Irish Sweepstake in 1930something aged 40something. Quite a whack of dosh back then.

He sent his children to good schools, had another child, and meanwhile he bought a brand new house - 222 Preston Road Coppull, Lancashire with loads of land.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.61429 ... 384!8i8192

He retied from coal-mining and opened a market garden selling produce during the war and into the 50s and 60s. He died aged 95.

Meanwhile, he gambled and gambled and gambled, but won nothing else. Football pools and horses mainly, but he knew very well indeed that it was a mug's game.
He was lucky. Very lucky indeed, and he knew it.

Not everyone is lucky, and maybe there are millions of gamblers who are chasing that luck, but 99.999% are unlucky.

[Bonefishblues]

99.6% of gamblers view it as what it is to them - entertainment. They expect to lose across a period, but enjoy the wins.

When we go to the pub and have a drink all we get is an empty glass and a passing feel-good moment, often accompanied by a social encounter, but we know that we will come out with a lighter wallet, too. That's exactly the same for people who go to the bookies, if you think about it.

...of course in both cases there's a small minority for whom it's more than that, but better to have them going into an environment where they can be helped to control their consumption than doing it at home alone, maybe?

[Mick F]

Yep.
True.

We were in a local pub yesterday afternoon, and was chatting to a man we know very well. Drinks beer quite a bit, and he's recently been diagnosed with Type2 diabetes. It was his birthday yesterday.

He told me that he would have half a dozen pints at the pub most days, and get through a bottle of rum every day or two at home as well.
He's packed it up, and limiting himself to two pints and no rum at all. Meanwhile, he still smokes.

He's gambling with his life, and has seen the light to some degree.

[reohn2]

Surely someone out there shares my aversion to gambling?

No?

It is a sad indictment of immoral Western cultural values that has not only created the benefactors that haphazardly produce a completely non deserved numpty winner, but also the sad glutinous wanting of such exorbitant winnings.

I used to have a joiner work for me who in a conversation about those exorbitant winnings,I mentioned that instead of a say £6milloin win the jackpot would be better if there were six £1 million prize draws and that the odds of winning would be increased.
He was adamant that if he'd bought a ticket he wanted the whole lot and couldn't be persuaded to the contrary,he wasnt a greedy chap but did surprise me in that respect.

In a parallel universe; a far more advanced Earthly human race go about life in a caring sharing collective existence in peace and harmony, no rich no poor no want, and no need of luckless lotteries or speculative gambling, all bets are off.

i bet they don't have motons there either

What's the odds of that happening?

For the record I don't gamble

[Bonefishblues]

Apropos of the above, I was involved in the launch of the National Lottery whilst working for a retailer.

We went up to Manc for training, and I was affronted to find out that, having paid my shiny pound for 6 numbers, someone else could also have them!

Disgraceful!

[reohn2]

I gamble annually, last year I punted about £500 in total.
£100 on my house burning down, £100 on it being burgled and £300 on me wrecking my car or having it stolen.

I'm sure there may have been a few side bets too, like the occasional parcel going missing etc but I don't track those.

An old adage is to never insure anything you can afford to replace.

Five months ago my eldest daughters kitchen caught fire due to a faulty newish fridge(manufacturing fault by all accounts ,insurance company are sueing the manufacturer),and caused havoc,they were lucky to get out alive without injury.
They've not moved back in yet but hope to be back in by the end of the month,they're glad they were insured particularly for the insurance company providing them with equivalent housing whilst all the work is carried out.

[Debs]

It is a sad indictment of immoral Western cultural values that has not only created the benefactors that haphazardly produce a completely non deserved numpty winner, but also the sad glutinous wanting of such exorbitant winnings.

I used to have a joiner work for me who in a conversation about those exorbitant winnings,I mentioned that instead of a say £6milloin win the jackpot would be better if there were six £1 million prize draws and that the odds of winning would be increased.
He was adamant that if he'd bought a ticket he wanted the whole lot and couldn't be persuaded to the contrary,he wasnt a greedy chap but did surprise me in that respect.

I'm retired now, but in my working days i ran a syndicate for myself 4 other colleagues, we each paid 40p per week for a 20% stake for a national lottery win - based on the very same numbers each go, and used for the Wednesday and Saturday draws. I suppose one doesn't really miss 40p per week, however, a rule we employed was that any £10 win would automatically be put towards funding our weekly 40p's, and rather oddly we did acquire quite a few £10 wins, so many in fact i rarely had to go around to collect money, and more than once we won £50+ which gave me the enjoyable task of handing a few quid back to my colleagues.
Realistically, over the six years we ran it for i'd say we probably broke more or less even, or if it did cost us it was piffling pence.
But we all agreed that playing the NL was a mugs game, and what it really bought us was hope, dreams, and fantasies.

Personally, i believe it wrong for an individual to be rewarded with a whopping amount of money for gambling, it irks my sense of morality and social justice, if you know what i mean. And i too used to say to my syndicate colleagues; it would be better to have 5 people win £200k each than 1 greedy git win a million. If i was the Empress of the British Empire i would decree that any lotto win not exceed £250k max. In theory that could buy someone a nice home, or relieve them of a mortgage, or make life or retirement more comfortable, and £250k is not that excessive; so a good chance the recipient will remain with feet on the ground...
But generally it seems to me the dark intension of this modern age multi million sqillion pound lottery win payouts are finance sector elitist subversion to normalise greed is good, and to take the public eye away from the Bankers bonus's, the shareholders hoard, the CEO's big bung golden handshake, etc...

[Bonefishblues]

Who are the controlling hands behind the conspiracy?

[Debs]

Who are the controlling hands behind the conspiracy?

We should be told.

Politicians legislate the way for big bumper win gambling, but their "controlling hands" could be controlled by strings pulled by a shadowy league of backroom oligarchs.

[Cyril Haearn]

Debs for Empress!

I would settle for a million max, the media like to cook up hysteria over rollovers and big jackpots, that is the problem

Remember when the lottery was introduced under the Major regime, there was a lot of criticism

It would be fun to win much more and be the new Bill Gates but I would prefer a quiet life

I used to play it decades ago, helped keep me going, won 30 pounds once I think