Be Excellent To Each Other

£148 million has to be won this Friday, if no outright winner it all rolls down to the next level.
I might actually give it a go, I could do with £148 million.

I wouldn't bother, I've got a ticket and I'm going to win.

And 5p* from every ticket helps underprivileged kids get into the Olympics!


*Not the actual amount but I can't immediately find it.

Did I mention that MrsTheVision won £1150 last week?

That's why I'm typing this on an iPad.

I'd quite like to win it, please.

My syndicate at work has been donating money to The National Lottery for about three years now, we play the Euro Millions draw every Friday and sometimes Tuesday if it's a juicy jackpot.

Not once, and I mean NOT FUCKING ONCE have we ever won more than our stake back in any given month.

We buy quite a lot of lines too, usually around 40 per draw.

It's been so shit for so long that a few months ago I suggested we have a 'second lottery' whereby whatever we've 'won' in any given month is basically raffled back out to one member of the syndicate, so one person at least gets fifty quid or so.

(The rules of that were was if the syndicate 'wins' less than its total stake in any given month, we do the 'second lottery' raffle, but if we make a profit then it gets distributed out or we buy more lines depending on a consensus. BUT WE'VE NEVER MADE A FUCKING PROFIT.)

I've been in the Tax department syndicate from my old firm for 10 years now. 63 lines per draw, costs me approx £25 every 10 weeks. Picked up a £10,000 win once.

The month before I joined it.

I make it a rule to play the EuroMillions whenever the jackpot goes over £100m.

I know I won't win, but it's fun to think about what I could do with the money if I did, so that's worth the £2 entry fee or whatever it costs these days.

Very much Obviously the lottery is tax on the thick but when the big jackpots come round a couple of quid is worth the ten minute day dream about creating my own dystopian society living the life of riley.

You have considerably more chance of being killed by flying office equipment than winning the lottery.

Watch out for those low flying hole punches!

I've played the lottery about four times in my life, and as others have said the daydream and chatting about what we'd do (buy a little bungalow and four yarn shops with play areas and cafes is my idea) is fun, and some of the money goes to good causes, so I don't mind the idea once in a while.

I'm a sucka, I have played the same 6 numbers since the lottery started in 1994

I play the same numbers every week, but through the website and direct debit. This way I don't have to deal with the crushing disappointment twice a week.

Google for The Lottery Frustrator if you've ever used the same numbers repeatedly.

It tells you what you would have won and paid as a stake if you'd used the same numbers on every draw.

I save money by not playing the lottery and still occasionally daydreaming about what I'd do with all the money if I were to enter it and win.

There comes a point with a high enough jackpot that your expected return is more than 100% - it must be around now, especially with the "cascade down if no winners" thing. Can't be doing with the maths this early in the morning though.

I went straight to photocopiers for that mental image.

I thought mimi wanted four YAM shops. Kinda disappointed when my brain fixed what my eyes told it.

I set up a direct debit last night for the lottery.. It's only £2 a week and someone's got to win.

I also had a couple of euro millions ticket and spent the spare pound on an instant win and won £2 back. I can see how people get hooked on these things.

Very important point: No. No they haven't.

I remember a documentary about the lotto in America and the jackpot rolled over and over and over and it got so high that a company literally bought every combination.

It was good.

This is the limit though. If no-one gets all the numbers today, whoever gets one less number gets the top prize money.

Aye.
I wonder why they've done that?

Probably to prevent the scenario you indicate above - where the jackpot actually makes the odds worth buying every combination.

That'll be it, indeed.

To stop John Smith (or whoever wins) becoming a Bond villain.

I've played two lines on the Saturday lottery via direct debit for years and I think I've won about £40 altogether. Doing it by DD is good because it avoid the disappointment of losing as someone else said, but there's also no frisson of excitement from checking the numbers to see if you've actually won which arguably takes any fun out of it. Mrs B's a proponent of saving money in Premium Bonds as her parents have won quite a bit of cash that way. Indeed the odd hundred quid she herself has won probably outstrips the laughable interest I get on my ISA and any lottery winnings put together.

Part of Camelot's license actually dictates this. If a jackpot is not won for a while the money sits in their coffers waiting to be paid out.

They're not allowed to sit on it indefinitely so they manufacture a superdraw with a guaranteed jackpot.

Surely that would be fucking party time as far as they're concerned?

then two companies do the same thing and split the jackpot. Or three. Or four.

Not such a great idea now.

...

Why? They still have to buy all the tickets.

I would imagine that if it became public knowledge then the lottery operator would get a shoeing for 'cheating the man in the street' or some other such thing.

not a great idea for the people doing the 'buy every combination' routine.

Then you have to gamble in the profits of a shared/split jackpot still being more than what you paid in.

And also if your buying all the tickets because you think there is a profit then what if someone else does as well ?

(from what I remember what actually makes up the bulk of the money is all the £10 3 number match ones - and was there some point in the past where Camelot said they had stopped ticket sales for a period because they were concerned that someone was doing this ?)

I...
What?
What do the Lottery People care about who wins when someone is buying all those tickets? Tickets sold == $$$


I'd imagine this is the only reason. Christ knows what the other two are on about.

I suspect Grim...s point was that it was party time for camelot, rather than party time for the people buying the tickets.

Obviously.

Except that's 2 or 3 companies buying every possible comination of ticket? 14million combinatios, or something?

Obviously not that obvious, look up there at those two goons

Most days, I imagine that BeeX is, in fact, just an incredibly slow burning game of mafiascum.

I'm guessing there's some pretty strong 'anti gaming the system' wording written into the Lottery Charter, too.

Is it gaming the system? If so, it's the most obvious gaming the system ever ever.

Would a bank lend you enough money to buy all the tickets if you could convince them that you'd pay it back tomorrow?

No.

Oh well, back to my eBay auctions then..

You wouldn't have time to buy all the tickets, anyway.

I assume theeuromillions is weekly. You would need to buy 124 tickets a second all week to cover all combinations.

Nope, Tuesdays and Fridays.

We'll call it 250 tickets a second, then.

EDIT: Or, draw the list up and then feed it into the computer to order it, but it'll still have to cope with 250 transactions a second, which is possible, I guess. I dunno. Is it? Must be as there's automated share trading which does that sort of thing, but would the website at the other end hold up? I'm no expert, but if it is being paged 250 times a second for a couple of days I would suspect it would fall over.