National Lottery

[AndersonC]

Just, to break off from killing, violence, left wing etc posts, something a little more 'gentle'. Is the lottery going to the dogs?

£29 for 4 numbers last night, £624 for 5 numbers and two people got less than a million each for splitting a £1.947m jackpot. Last Weds paid £33 for 4 numbers.

In short, crap prizes. Hardly going to enable anyone other than a jackpot winner to go throwing champagne around.

I recall when the lottery was launched, they spouted on about winning the jackpot being a "life chaging amount of money" etc. Most people couldn't even retire on a prize of £975k, let alone buy a fast sports car, big house in the country, and all the other things one would have traditionally associated with winning the lottery jackpot.

So what has changed? Are Camelot making more profit ? Are they siphoning millions off to feed the ridiculously money-hungry 2012 Olympics? Are less people playing because they got fed up of "lotto extra", "Thunderball", "Daily play", "Dream number", "euromillions" etc etc and just want one draw with big prizes?

Who else out there has a regular dabble on the lottery and is getting sick of seeing these rubbish prizes on offer? Is it on its last legs?

 

[crazycanuck]

In Canada also have a national lottery called 6/49 which you can buy weekly for 2$ or 1pound.
You pick 6 numbers 1 to 49, If you get all 6 you win the big prize , it varies from week to week example no winner this week prize goes up.
Most weeks it's between 4 to 30 million.
smaller prizes from 3 to 5 numbers.
Also any prizes you win ARE TAX FREE.
you can also buy what they call an ENCORE which is a machine picked number on the same ticket , this cost 1 dollar or 50P it has a seperate prize, you could win on the Encore only.

 

[Shytalkz]

I had that bin man/***** as a client. Down to his last half mil apparently. Easy come, easy go.

 

[^woody^]

SE's win the lottery every time they are given a job!

I know of City baristers who have given up the bar to be IStructE. lol

Can you imagine seeing your six numbers come up, and thinking "Right this is it, my once in a lifetime win" and then find you've shared a poxy jackpot with 50 others and got a few £000.

Does anyone remember the Pools or Spot the ball? What happened to them?

 

[NS215]

http://www.footballpools.com/

I won £69 on lottery last sat for 4 numbers

My dad was in a pub syndicate that won the littlewoods jackpot in 1983

 

[JohnD]

the lottery is a voluntary tax paid by the poor, the ignorant and the desperate which transfers money away from them and into genteel projects like the Royal Opera House

Maybe the mugs are getting wiser?

 

[Thermo]

never ceases to amaze me when a lucky dip ticket is bought, how many repetitions of the numbers there are

 

[^woody^]

That's right. I thought i may be just me, but on 5 lines, the amount of repetitive numbers does not seem random at all.

Even if you have a couple of lines of numbers picked yourself, the LD lines will always have some of those numbers. And if you put the LD through on separate tickets, it seems to use numbers from the preceding ticket.

I wonder if someone has asked Camelot to explain this?

But I suppose statistically, each line still has the same chance of winning. In fact, you if the lines have similar numbers, then there is more chance of winning the top, 2nd, 3rd and 4th prizes in one go!

 

[Steve]

Camelot is far from panicking over the decline in ticket sales. For some bizarre reason, they are spending millions changing all their lottery terminals to satellite link, rather than ISDN. It seems a step back though - particularly considering cash machines have been changed from satellite to ADSL lines.

 

[confidentincompetent]

£29 for 4 numbers last night, £624 for 5 numbers and two people got less than a million each for splitting a £1.947m jackpot. Last Weds paid £33 for 4 numbers.
?

I lost interest in it, just have the occasional dabble now, never done the dream number (cheek). Must say I didnt realise how low the prizes were nowadays.
Last time I got 4 numbers in lotto (2yrs ago?.) was £147.00 have'nt had a bean since ..lol

 

[jefoss]

Can you imagine seeing your six numbers come up, and thinking "Right this is it, my once in a lifetime win" and then find you've shared a poxy jackpot with 50 others and got a few £000.

Does anyone remember the Pools or Spot the ball? What happened to them?

it happened in leicester a few years ago, taxi driver syndicate, won a share of 9 mil. turns out it was one of the highest number of winners, probably only just paid for the license for the next year after the split

for me, i would honestly be happy to win a few hundred thou, obviosuly not ever gonna say no to 6 mil or so. but the odds of getting 6 numbers a re so crappy, if i got em and won less than 1 mil, id feel cheated (yet still happy to have won something! you get my meaning anyway)

the pools / spot the ball is still running.

 

[xerxes]

I agree with JohnD: the lottery is a cynical mechanism for depriving (usually the poor) of their money and giving it to projects that they wouldn't enjoy or benefit from, and, oh yes, to give even more money to the government (which they don't enjoy or benefit from either).

 

[ben_m_g]

I've often thought there would be space for another lottery, none of this lucky extra numbers or whatever they are.

A national game with prizes capped at so-many thousand but a certain amount of money had to be won, e.g. a 200,000 prize, 150,000 etc etc but you didnt have to have all the numbers it would be allocated to the next nearest.

A lot better odds, more winners = worth playing.

Unless its got another name and been tried?

 

[JohnD]

Premium Bonds

 

[jefoss]

I've often thought there would be space for another lottery, none of this lucky extra numbers or whatever they are.

A national game with prizes capped at so-many thousand but a certain amount of money had to be won, e.g. a 200,000 prize, 150,000 etc etc but you didnt have to have all the numbers it would be allocated to the next nearest.

A lot better odds, more winners = worth playing.

Unless its got another name and been tried?

this is sort of the format that richard bransen wanted to do.

government wouldnt let him have the rights tho, as most of it went back into the fund and not their pockets.