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Going back some years a mate on his way home gets a call from his wife , we need some milk for the kids breakfast - he stops at the local spar shop and their having the lottery stuff installed , pays for his groceries and the girl serving says do you want to try a scratch card -£50k £50 bloody thousand. Jammie bar steward.
Someone famous (can't remember who) did some maths and said 'trying to get rich by playing the lottery is like trying to commit suicide by flying scheduled commercial airlines'.
Buddy Holly?
i must admit to not playing the lotto very often,but i did win about a fiver on a scratchcard about 7 years ago.
tbh i would be very happy if i won anything,but £10,000 would be a fantastic amount (could buy a new bike(s)/pay some bills e.t.c)
may well start buying the odd scratchcard again.
I guess £1.5 million isn't 'enough' nowadays, maybe it was 20 years ago? All depends on what you need to 'live' but I'm guessing most people enter the lottery in the hope (vain or otherwise) of winning enough that they can change their lives? For me personally £1.5 million would have a significant but not totally life changing effect, £10 million on the other hand would be life changing.
I guess people day dream about "how much better my life would be if I won..." and even if their chances are small there's a glimmer of hope which for some people makes the cost/chances of winning irrelevant.
For me personally £1.5 million would have a significant but not totally life changing effect,
😯
£2 a week charity donation / additional tax:
1:14million chance of a life changing win,
£1 goes on prize money
55p donated to a good cause
24p levied by the government to help cure the deficit
The rest goes on profits for camelot (which they will also pay tax on)
I doubt £2 a week donated to any charity would get anywhere near the economic benefits. It certainly wouldn't get you the chance at having your money back.
So the question becomes, why aren't you doing your bit & buying a ticket every week?
So the question becomes, why aren't you doing your bit & buying a ticket every week?
Freewill.
For me personally £1.5 million would have a significant but not totally life changing effect
If you take the average UK salary as being £26,000 (got that from google), it would take you 57.7 years to earn that ignoring interest / pay rises. I'm guessing that would make quite a difference to a lot of people
Freewill.
Free Brian!
So the question becomes, why aren't you doing your bit & buying a ticket every week?
That's an interesting way of looking at it - just on the verge of knocking it on the head (they've doubled the draws, doubled the cost, now they're lengthening the odds, screw em! etc) but if I'm doing a good thing by playing... 🙂
Freewill.
Good reason 😈
Freewill.
Free Willy?
When they add the extra 10 numbers and lengthen the odds for the domestic game I'll be giving it up. I've had the same set of numbers from the start and now seems a good time to knock it on the head.
I'm in the not enough to bother about camp these days as it's a p!$$ poor return - it's been below £1m for a 6 number win too many times lately and I'd while you'd be overjoyed to win a few hundred k you'd be gutted that it down't compare to the £8-20m of old.
Camelot should be stripped of the franchise and it taken back to basics - no scratchcards no thunderball just a single draw a week with a realistic* chance of winning a decent "life changing" (your's and your families/friends) amount and nothing else.
* I read a statistic that shows how unlikely it is to win the other day and that's that you're more likely to have been married to Katie Price (Jordan) than to win the Lottery Jackpot in any given draw.
Free Nelson Mandela?
£3.20 win last week on Euromillions
I got 5 numbers on my birthday about 13 years ago. 1500 quid. It was a Wednesday. The bonus was 26 where as I needed 25. I honestly thought I'd won loads more until I read it properly. Not won anything since..
probably live off 1.1 million if you have your wits about you
Probably? If you gave 1.1 mil to a decent investment management company, you'd never have to work again in your life.
I once saw a clip on You've Been Framed where a fella had recorded the lottery results show one week and then gone and bought a ticket with those winning numbers.
The following week, when his wife thinks she's watching the results show to check the numbers, she's watching the recording...
It was genius 🙂
I know people worth up to £1.5m, they still work and seem pretty ordinary really. Nice house but no super car.
I've never had any interest in buying a ticket but do invest in the stock market - makes more sense to me I suppose. Never bet on horses either though that does give a far better return that the lottery and is more fun - but more effort I suppose.
I know people worth up to £1.5m, they still work and seem pretty ordinary really. Nice house but no super car.
That's because they still want to make more money and/or enjoy their job.
If I was doing a 9-5 in a job I hated when I won, I'd quit my job and go and do whatever took my fancy. You'd probably get 5 percent returns on average by investing that 1.5 mil, that's 75k a year - aka living comfortably.
That's the thing really, if you're earning decent money might as well carry on doing it - it's how you value your time I suppose. I wonder how long I'll be able to earn as much as I do now, would I take a job paying an average salary or would I 'retire'? Hopefully the wife will still be working to make that decision easier!
We can afford a couple of quid a week so we put some numbers on - I'm fully aware of the odds, but gotta be in it to win it I suppose.
If granddad-in-law had been born three days earlier we'd have won the jackpot a year or two back (one line was the usual birthdays...). Was a bit gutted to have won a significantly smaller amount for five numbers, but still up on the entire venture...
Camelot should be stripped of the franchise and it taken back to basics - no scratchcards no thunderball just a single draw a week with a realistic* chance of winning a decent "life changing" (your's and your families/friends) amount and nothing else.
Abso-****ing-lutely. To be fair, I'm less fussed about the jackpot (although obviously bigger is better) but I wish they'd screw off with all the extra draws, extra balls, etc etc. They'd see the jackpot rise then, too.
I know of a syndicate of warehousemen that won £8m between 6 of them. There was slight panic from the management and HR making sure that they weren't all going to leave straight away! In the end I think 4 out the 6 stayed in their jobs. There was a few Ferraris parked where there once were Fiestas though 😆
I've never had any interest in buying a ticket but do invest in the stock market - makes more sense to me I suppose.
You make £2 investments?
I don't buy tickets with any expectation to win, but if I have £2 in my pocket it's better for me to spend it on a lucky dip than on a bag of Wine Gums.
I think I'll continue with the lottery. There are so many things that can screw your life up in an instant, but very few that can improve it, and in my eyes winning the lottery jackpot would be a wonderful thing to happen.
I know people worth up to £1.5m, they still work and seem pretty ordinary really. Nice house but no super car.
And that's the key. £1.5m will allow you to live comfortably if you don't throw it around.
Let's see...
We owe £90k on the house. I'd pay that off, move somewhere nicer, rent this place out and buy a nice used camper van for say £30k. Let's say I spend £500,000 on that lot, so £1m left.
I'd rent this place out which would bring in around my current salary.
Mrs PP earns a lot more then I do, but we wouldn't need more than £1500 a month on top of the rent we'd be collecting to live rather splendidly and pay the bills. So I could set up as a part time moblie mechanic, based at my nice new house and Mr's PP could keep chickens and make cakes if she wanted,
And on top of that we could bank £1m and the interest should bring in £30k or more a year, which is all we'd really need and then some.
So no flash cars, coke, hookers, helicopters etc. Stay as we are, spend some wisely, invest some, and we'd never have to work again if we didn't want to. But we'd probably have something to keep us occupied!
and in my eyes winning the lottery jackpot would be a wonderful thing to happen.
I do wonder if it really would be though. I reckon the vast majority burn through the cash quickly and end up broke and bitter after 1-3 years.
I still do Euromillions every week though.....
PLEASE GOD....let me prove to you that money won't change me!!....ha ha ha
This time next year guys......fat bikes are on me!!!...lol
I have literally just won £100 on a £10 scratch card 25mins ago, 3rd time within the last 11 days!
I'm proper hooked now.
Amazing that a regressive revenue raising scheme has lasted so long - and people still don't get it!!
Amazing that a regressive revenue raising scheme has lasted so long - and people still don't get it!!
Or they get it and aren't in the slightest bothered.