Chances of a big lotto win reduced further

PiKe · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:06

In their infinite wisdom, they have decided to remove the millionaire raffle in favour of higher lower tier prizes.

Now I don't know about you, but when I do occasionally go on the lottery it's because of the chance of a life changing sum, now that the raffle is being removed and with the additional balls which were introduced, seems like it's even more of a waste of money.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/78788...ot-changes-the-rules-sparking-boycott-threat/

Zefan · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:08

For my opinion on the lottery, please refer to iDubbbz's latest video

Derek W · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:21

I was impressed when they first changed it last week. First prize £2,000,000 0 winners, second prize £1,000,000 3 winners, third prize £1,750!

Quartz · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:24

PiKe said:
Now I don't know about you, but when I do occasionally go on the lottery it's because of the chance of a life changing sum,

The Lottery should be filed under entertainment, not investment.

LOAM · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:35

Its basically a stupid person tax

deusexlumina · 2 Dec 2018 at 21:40

For some reason I've always found it appealing, despite the poor odds.

Just the concept that there is a very small, yet non zero, chance that all money worries will permanently go away is worth the occasionally flutter in my mind.

Angilion · 3 Dec 2018 at 00:39

I fancy boys said:
For some reason I've always found it appealing, despite the poor odds.

Just the concept that there is a very small, yet non zero, chance that all money worries will permanently go away is worth the occasionally flutter in my mind.

There's a vastly higher chance that you'll die as a result of putting on your socks and all your worries will permanently go away.

And no, that's not hyperbole. The chance of dying as a result of putting on your socks is entire orders of magnitude higher than the chance of winning enough money on the lottery to make all your money worries permanently go away.

In fact, even if by some spectacular freak of chance you did win a large amount of money on the lottery even that probably wouldn't make your money worries go away permanently. Many lottery winners end up broke.

It's a particularly bad way of gambling that relies on manipulating the fact that almost all people are incapable of understanding large numbers and extremely bad at understanding that repeated small payments add up. Humans are generally extremely bad at applying maths. £100 is almost always perceived as being far more money than £2 50 times. Sure, people can do such simple maths and calculate that it's £100 either way, but they'll perceive the former as being more money than the latter even after they know it's the same amount. As for odds, any number over about 1000 registers about the same. Few if any people can really understand big numbers. It's why there are numerous videos, images and pages online trying to represent big numbers in understandable ways, e.g. constructing a scale model of a miniscule portion of a miniscule portion of the observable universe on a scale so small that the sun is a small pea and the Earth is a speck invisible to the naked eye centimetres away...and the nearest star is a small pea so far away it takes hours to drive there and you couldn't even make the model in the UK because you'd run out of land.

chaparral · 3 Dec 2018 at 00:55

Angilion said:
As for odds, any number over about 1000 registers about the same. Few if any people can really understand big numbers.

And the way people see something for sale at say £5,999 and look at it as 5000 and not 6000

The amount of times I heard someone say things like this to me "that car only £5000 when it has a £5995 price tag "

Luckystrike123 · 3 Dec 2018 at 08:07

I occasionally buy a euromillions ticket. I know that the odds of winning are infinitesimally small but I feel that the dream of winning is easily worth the occasional 2 quid.

When I receive the 'we have news about your ticket' email I'll leave it a day before checking the details. Invariably I've won £2.70, but it doesn't matter as I've gone about my day imagining that I'm a millionaire.

cainer · 3 Dec 2018 at 11:53

The chances of winning the Euromillions is ~140 million to 1
could you imagen 140m horses lined up for a race and you have to pick the winner

the starting line would be just shy of 87,000 miles wide if every stall was 1m wide, so the starting line would circle the earth around 3.5 times lol

LeeUK · 3 Dec 2018 at 12:46

I sometimes buy a Thunderball lucky dip, from the shop as spending a £1 and having a random flutter is part of the excitement. You don't get that by having an online account where you have to top up a balance first.

Just winning £500K will make me very happy.

antijoke · 3 Dec 2018 at 13:02

cainer said:
The chances of winning the Euromillions is ~140 million to 1
could you imagen 140m horses lined up for a race and you have to pick the winner
the starting line would be just shy of 87,000 miles wide if every stall was 1m wide, so the starting line would circle the earth around 3.5 times lol

Sanchez · 3 Dec 2018 at 13:41

LOAM said:
Its basically a stupid person tax

5 posts for the obligatory "stupid person tax" comment? GD, you're losing your edge.

something daft already!! · 3 Dec 2018 at 13:43

I don't buy any tickets, it's too much of a lottery for me.

Rannoch · 3 Dec 2018 at 13:48

cainer said:
The chances of winning the Euromillions is ~140 million to 1
could you imagen 140m horses lined up for a race and you have to pick the winner
the starting line would be just shy of 87,000 miles wide if every stall was 1m wide, so the starting line would circle the earth around 3.5 times lol

Lol

Teh_Next · 3 Dec 2018 at 14:48

I'd buy a lottery ticket with it's high odds over having to navigate the hoard of utter nutjobs that hang around the bookies.

LeeUK · 3 Dec 2018 at 14:50

Teh_Next said:
I'd buy a lottery ticket with it's high odds over having to navigate the hoard of utter nutjobs that hang around the bookies.

Usually just old men at the bookies I pass.

Jean-F · 3 Dec 2018 at 14:53

My take is, if you ain’t in it, you can’t win it.
I do one set of numbers on the Euro, every week, both draws, and one set on the Lotto, also both draws every week.
This sets me back £9.00 per week.
That doesn’t make a dent in my standard of living, I still go in a pub whenever I feel like it, and I still take my wife out to dinner, at least once per week.
If, in laying out that £9.00 per week, my wife and/or I had to go without something, then I’d stop laying out the £9.00, but while it doesn’t affect my life, I’ll carry on doing it.
I’ll probably never win anything big, but who knows, maybe I will, but I couldn’t if I didn’t buy a ticket.

Thekwango · 3 Dec 2018 at 14:59

chaparral said:
And the way people see something for sale at say £5,999 and look at it as 5000 and not 6000

The amount of times I heard someone say things like this to me "that car only £5000 when it has a £5995 price tag "

I've genuinely never met anyone who thinks that way, certainly not to my knowledge and certainly never had anyone tell me that their £2.99 'thing' cost 2 quid. you need better friends

LOAM said:
Its basically a stupid person tax

yes, yes of course it is Albert.

Johno please? · 3 Dec 2018 at 15:12

Angilion said:
In fact, even if by some spectacular freak of chance you did win a large amount of money on the lottery even that probably wouldn't make your money worries go away permanently. Many lottery winners end up broke.

That's because overweight northerners always win it who were useless with money anyway.