Be Excellent To Each Other

£2 a line now.

Do you play, will it stop you playing?

I'll be less likely to buy a ticket on impulse. Would buy a Euro one instead.

What's the reasoning behind it?

I could just look it up, I suppose.

Huh - not only are they doubling the price, but they're reducing the amount you win for five numbers (down to £1,000 from £1,500) and five numbers plus the bonus (down to £50,000 from £100,000).

People are complaining about it on Facebook, and amongst them is this gem:
Jesus Christ.

Bigger jackpots is the answer they are giving, but I suspect the real reason is that they haven't put the price up in 20 years.

No. It hasn't been...has it?

1994 IIRC

19 November, 1994.

Yeah, you're right - 1994. That's depressing.

The lottery is a fucking disgrace IMO, nothing more than a rip-off tax on the poor (and stupid - like me, for instance, who can't resist saying "three lucky dips for tonight's draw please love" when I go in a shop on Saturday )

But I mean seriously, the payout is utterly ludicrous. People were (quite rightly) getting in a lather in that casino thread AE posted the other day in the gambling thread, because the game in question only paid out a 96% return, instead of the advertised 100% RTP.... yet the Lottery pays back about 25% IIRC! And don't give me all that "good causes" guff, either. People play it irrespective, with dreams of winning a jackpot against all conceivable odds. You've a better chance of walking up to a total stranger and guessing their entire phone number from start to finish correctly, than winning the Lottery. (And three times more likely to get struck by lightning lol)

This price increase is cynical in the extreme; notice how they were issuing cards that remembered your numbers etc. for the last few months. Now, of course, people aren't going to bear the thought of halving their numbers/lines only for the ones they ditch coming up... so of course, this will have the effect of doubling people's outlay in many cases, I've no doubt.

I play one line on saturday and one on wednesday on the 'main' draw through the website. Never have to think about it. Looks like my standing order is doubling

We play now and again, but I suspect two quid versus one will cut our occasional outlays to very occasional. As for retaining numbers, no bloody way. Random every single time. I'm not getting caught in that trap of feeling you 'have' to play every time.

So long ago, Noel Edmunds was still a BBC 1 primetime star:

In 1995 they did the Lottery TV Show from the village hall where I lived. The back of my head is a BBC1 primetime star.

You lived in a village hall??!

Why up the price AND lower the prizes?

Also, the lottery has more competition these days in the form of the Health Lottery and Euromillions. Anyone play those?

Exactly. If I'm paying £2, I'll go for the nutty fortunes of Euros.

I play the health lottery every time I walk through the housing estate near my parent's place.

Somewhere on TVTropes they refer to an episode of 'Noel's House Party' where John Pertwee is at the door as the Doctor and tells Noel that he's just come back from the year 2010 and Noel is still on the telly.

£2 for a few days of lovely day dreaming still seems fair to me.

He still does DOND though, doesn't he? (Plus his mug is on just about every fruit machine that you see these days as well, since most of them seem to be based on that particular gameshow).

I despise the lottery though am in it at work as (for now at least) it's both draws for just £2 a week, is fun to banter with my colleagues about "what if..." etc, and I'd only spend that money on chocolate or something.

However, what I get really massively irritated about is otherwise clever people getting sucked into it and giving it, "Well someone's got to win...", and I always say well it won't be you though because the jackpot odds are 14 million to 1, so stop being silly.

I am describing two people I know in the above, one is a work colleague who earns rubbish, part-time wages, yet twice a week I see her getting out a wad of used tickets and looking up the results online. The other week she won £25 or something, and was acting like she could retire early. I estimated she must have spent about 30 quid to 'earn' that £25.

Yet if you suggest to gullible lottery addicts that they have a £10 flutter on a horse race or whatever, they get all offended and say they're not gamblers and they don't know about horses so they won't win and so what's the point.

I usually only buy when it's a multiple roll over for the 15 minute day dream...fully knowing that I've just chucked a quid or a couple of quid away (but still with that ridiculous thought that I may win in the back of my head).

Burberry tax wankers

That's the episode of Noels House Party shown on the Saturday the 27th of November 1993. And the year Pertwee had come back from was 2013 not 2010.

Do not attempt to engage me in further conversation on the facts above or I promise to bore you fucking rigid.

A month of lovely day dreaming surely?

Ha! I didn't even see it coming!

Ahahahahahahhhahhahaahaha.

No. Never.

The main flaw with that statement is that someone hasn't got to win.

They do after a while in the Euros

And the normal one, I believe. But certainly not every week.

I'll do a Euromillions if it's a massive rollover, and likewise know it's pointless but still think "hell, why not just for this one". I normally forget I've even played though, so make sure I do it online in case I forget to check if I've actually won something!

The first time the email came through saying Important information about you ticket I actually nearly threw up with excitement. I won £6.

I often wonder, when folk tell me that: is the default £12m not worth your time?

Aren't there daily draws now and numerous 'official' lottery alternatives? I cannot recall the names (something balls)?

Which offer the best odds?

A recent scratchcard TV ad claimed something like "80 people win every second". Just how many of them do they sell? The mind does boggleth.

I think the Irish lottery has the best odds.

To be sure, to be sure.

For those ones, you're much better off doing them at about 4am, when hardly anyone else will be. This will make you far more likely to be one of those 80.

/SCIENCE