Nine Reasons To Shun The Lottery

As Camelot stands poised to win a new ten-year licence to run the National Lottery, we give nine reasons to leave the Lotto alone!

Lotto operator Camelot has been chosen as the preferred bidder for the licence to run the National Lottery for the next decade. Camelot has run the National Lottery since its launch in November 1994, and its next licence will run for ten years from February 2009, subject to approval from the National Lottery Commission.Personally, I haven't played the National Lottery for many years. After successfully overcoming an addiction to casino gambling in the Nineties, I went on to give up playing the Lotto. These days, I prefer to save or invest my hard-earned loot instead. Here are ten reasons why I believe the National Lottery is a loser's game (and the same goes for scratchcards, which were launched in March 1995):Millions of Losers1. 53 out of 54 tickets don't winYou have a 1-in-54 chance of winning any prize on the Lotto, most of which will be £10 awards. Thus, over 98% of all tickets (53 out of 54) end up in the dustbin.2. Only half of the stake money is paid out in prizesThe British public spends around £5 billion a year on the National Lottery and its variants, yet only half (50%) of this sum is returned to winners. In other words, gamblers lose £2½ billion a year by playing the Lotto. Oops!Hardly any lucky winners3. Over half of the main 'prize pot' goes to Jackpot winnersAfter paying out all of the £10 awards, over half (52%) of the remaining prize pot is paid to the ultra-jammy winners who manage to match all six numbers. The remaining 48% is shared among winners with five numbers plus the bonus ball (16%), five numbers (10%) and four numbers (22%). So, a few lucky people grab the lion's share of the prize pot.Very poor odds4. Even matching four balls is a thousand-to-one chanceThe odds of matching four numbers are precisely 1,033-to-one against. So, if you buy one Lottery ticket a week for close to twenty years, you'll have roughly a two-thirds (63%) chance of drawing four numbers at least once.5. Matching five numbers is a 55,492-to-1 gambleAgain, if you buy one ticket a week for around 1,067 years, you have approximately a 63% chance of scooping five numbers at least once. The problem is that you're not going to live until the next millennium, agreed?6. Matching five numbers and the bonus ball: over 2.3 million-to-oneThe chance of pulling this off is a massive 2,330,636-to-one against. Forget about it!7. The chance of winning the Jackpot is nearly fourteen million-to-oneTo be precise, the odds of winning the Big One are 13,983,816 to one against. You stand about as much chance of hitting the big-time as you do of plucking a single lucky grain from a wheelie bin full of sand!More bad news8. The Chancellor snatches one pound in every eightTo be exact, 12% of all Lotto sales go to HM Treasury. In effect, this amounts to a tax worth £600 million a year to Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown's replacement as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Darling is, therefore, the UK's biggest Lottery winner!9. The Lottery is a terrible way to give to good causesMore than a quarter (28%) of Lottery sales go into a fund which benefits good causes. This fund has awarded around a quarter of a million grants to community groups and other good causes. In a typical year, the fund receives around £1.4 billion from Lottery punters.So, if I spend £1 a Lottery ticket, good causes which I don't get to choose get 28p. However, if I donate £1 to a favourite charity using Gift Aid, the charity gets an extra 22% in tax relief, boosting its return to £1.28 (because £1 divided by 78% equals £1.28). What's more, as a higher-rate taxpayer, I get a tax rebate worth an extra 18% of my gift, which is worth a further 0.18 x £1.28 = 23p to me. So, a gift of £1.28 costs me just 77p, which is miles better than throwing away a pound to make a 28p donation!In summaryThe 'relentless rules of lottery mathematics' mean that the National Lottery is, in effect, a voluntary and regressive tax, levied hardest on those people who are poor, or are simply poor at maths. Unless you strike it really rich, expect to lose four-fifths (80%) of your Lotto spending during your lifetime. Lotteries are for fools, not Fools!Finally, I see that Lottery sales are down £100m year on year. Hurrah!