Lottery fiasco

[5129frederick]

This lottery fiasco - the odds against winning the jackpot now being an absurd forty-five million to one since they increased the number of balls.  

People are moaning in today's Express about those with five numbers walking away with less than £900.00.  In desperation I've just spent my last couple of quid on a lottery ticket not in the hope of winning the jackpot because I know it will never happen, but in the reasonable hope of picking up a pony - twenty-five quid which would come in handy.  

Odds-wise you can't do better that virtual roulette in a betting shop though, where for £1.00 you can take your chances on winning odds at 35:1 or whatever your stake money is.  Instant cash plus your original stake money back.  It's instant too.  Takes just forty seconds to know whether you've won or lost.  The odds are in the bookie's favour:  if it was totally even it would be 36:1 odds but in reality he wins a hell of a lot more because it's a two-edged sword - people will chase their losses or if they win, they'll try to win more and put it all back into the machine again.  Nobody's holding a gun to your head - you can walk out any time if you're winning, but it doesn't work like that.  I worked in the City area of London until I retired, and there was virtually no chance of getting on to one of those machines lunchtime.  Four machines netted an average of £6000.00 each per week - £24,000.00.

I saw one punter win £1500.00 and walk out with a totally bland expression on his face.

The most I ever won in one sitting was £140.00.  The most I ever lost - chasing my losses, was £70.00  I retired just in the nick of time, because I tried to muscle in with the big boys.  You will not believe just how addictive it is.  They actually call it the Devil's game because discounting the 0, if you add up all the numbers between 1 - 36, they come to the magical figure of - you wait for this, 666 ( the number of the beast, if you believe in that type of thing!  )  The more desperate you are the worse it gets.  And I know.

[brynteg11]

Even those odds are better than if you don't buy a tciket at all so I will continue to buy lottery tickets and plan what I am going to do with the money when I win.

[5129frederick]

Good on yer.    In the mean time I'm going to tune my air guitar

[brynteg11]

...... and good luck with today's draw, I hope you have a winning ticket.

[5129frederick]

[bitsnknots]

We stopped doing Lotto when the put the price up to £2.  We do do the Health Lottery though even though there you can only win up to £100,000.  Lotto is too much of a swizz now.

[millielilac]

Have been doing the lottery since it began using the same numbers ...

Since the introduction of the new 10 numbers there is very little chance of winning but my numbers are paid for via direct debit ( has been for years ). I do intend to cancel the direct debit once I get around to it  . The health lottery or Euromillions seem a better option ....

[5129frederick]

What time is tonight's main draw?

[5129frederick]

I ran a lottery syndicate at work for twelve years and in all that time, using the same numbers, we won a grand total of £6.00 between seventeen of us!  It was a thankless task, too, with people getting stroppy if you were having two weeks off work, because that meant you had to collect three weeks money off everybody before you left with people making every excuse under the sun not to pay you.  It's just not worth the aggro.

"I'll pay you on Monday..."

"How can you!  I'm going on two weeks holiday on Friday!"

My advice?  Forget it!  Join somebody else's lottery, but don't run your own!

Biggest headache was a Premium Bond syndicate because I HAD to have the £100.00 per month up front because there were always stragglers.  Thankfully it finished before I retired - never again.

[mustavaquid]

http://www.freeview.co.uk/tv-guide

[brynteg11]

Did anyone have any luck? I had one number!

[mustavaquid]

Yep, I did.  I bought 3 lines on Eoromillion and 2 lines on Thunderball for Friday ( £9 total ) and won £10 on the Thunderball.   On Saturday I bought 3 lines on Lotto and 3 lines on Thunderball ( again £9 total ) and won £10 on Thunderball and a free lucky dip on the Lotto. So overallI I'm up £2 + the chance of more with the lucky dip. The biggest Lotto win I've had was £500 on the Dream Number, and I've had a few wins over the years with 4 numbers paying me between about £50 and £150 each time and more than a few £10 for 3 numbers. This new system has only given me a few of the £25 for 3 number payouts.

[5129frederick]

Well done. 

[john.b74]

I stick to Euro Millions.