Lottery price rise 'an unfair tax on the stupid'

[Cormac]

I play the lottery.

I know what the odds are of me actually winning something. (Extremely low).

So for me, it is a small flutter a couple of times a week, that might, in a very very very long shot, actually pay off. In the meantime, it is a minor diversion in the week, for a bit of fun.

I could be smoking 20 a day, and costing my family an awful lot more. A couple of Lotto Tickets a week isn't an enormous expenditure.

There's a logical fallacy in there somewhere.

I don't see where.

I know that the odds are astronomically against me winning.

I need no return AT ALL from the tickets I buy in order for me to enjoy it.

I like the idea that moneys go to socially useful ends (well - until the state started using it incorrectly recently - but that is another story).

I like the occasional small win. (Biggest win to date - £65, and a load of 30s, 20s, 10s and so on).

And of course, as they used to say in the Irish Sweepstakes - if you're not in, you can't win!



And it is true that 20 cigarettes a day is a crucifying expense, and far in excess of what someone would spend if they bought a lotto ticket every single day. If we really want to see a tax on the stupid and ignorant - check out the taxes levied on tobacco.

The fallacy I see is that it's better than "X", when X is not something one need do at all - an increasing number of people choose not to do it, and some of those who still so wish they didn't.

Not that I'm dissing the idea of buying a few lottery tickets you understand.

Ah, I see.

Well, the reference so ciggies was really only a throwaway comment - not central to the point I was making - which is really that I buy lotto tickets, I'm fully aware of the odds, I still like it even though I have no expectation that I'll win anything at all.

Also - I know that no Irish Lotto jackpot will buy me a Sunseeker or a Learjet.

I could probably charter a private jet a few times though...

[klr]

I suspect you could charter one of the luxury boats down at Galway docks for a fair price if you chanced your arm. No Sunseekers that I've seen, but some fancy boats all the same.

[Blind groper]

Like what the manager of a cosmetics company said : "We sell hope."

No one ever said the hope they sell will ever yield positive results. No cosmetics ever made ugly into beauty. The odds against state lotteries being won are so low that this hope is also forlorn, but it is still hope.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You don't get money back from a roller coaster ride, or a sky dive.

[JimC]

Buying a lottery ticket gives a faint tinge of possibility to my fantasies of being an evil rich bastard.

[Jason]

If you play the lottery with the expectation of winning the jackpot, you're an idiot. No ifs or buts.

You'd be better off by far to invest that money, $10 a week or whatever it is. In 30 years time you'll see a return of $100,000, probably more.

[Cormac]

If you play the lottery with the expectation of winning the jackpot, you're an idiot. No ifs or buts.

You'd be better off by far to invest that money, $10 a week or whatever it is. In 30 years time you'll see a return of $100,000, probably more.

But 30 years is a long time, and I could be dead tomorrow. Besides which, I've already made arrangements so that I will have funds in 30 years time. (Mind you, the lefties keep trying to retax my already taxed wages, so saving is beginning to lose its attractions).

[Rum]

The most fun I ever had with the lottery here was choosing six numbers at random, writing them down on a piece of paper and then watching to see if they came up (without buying the ticket..).

[JimC]

The most fun I ever had with the lottery here was choosing six numbers at random, writing them down on a piece of paper and then watching to see if they came up (without buying the ticket..).

And if they did come up, you'd have to shoot yourself, right?

[Rum]

The most fun I ever had with the lottery here was choosing six numbers at random, writing them down on a piece of paper and then watching to see if they came up (without buying the ticket..).

And if they did come up, you'd have to shoot yourself, right?

Well at the very least a game of Russian roulette!

[Clinton Huxley]

I buy a lottery ticket upon occasion. It's a long shot but the upkeep on Huxley Manor is shocking and it's less effort than bulling a succession of rich widowed duchesses until they open their purses.

[HomerJay]

The most fun I ever had with the lottery here was choosing six numbers at random, writing them down on a piece of paper and then watching to see if they came up (without buying the ticket..).

Ah, a mental bet.

The problem with that is, that if you buy a ticket and it loses, you've lost a quid. With mental betting if you lose you're losing your mind.

[Clinton Huxley]

Buying a lottery ticket gives a faint tinge of possibility to my fantasies of being an evil rich bastard.

I can picture you as a Bond villain, in a sinister cardigan, deploying some kind of Doomsday device that can only be defused by solving some particularly complex equation....

[Rum]

The most fun I ever had with the lottery here was choosing six numbers at random, writing them down on a piece of paper and then watching to see if they came up (without buying the ticket..).

Ah, a mental bet.

The problem with that is, that if you buy a ticket and it loses, you've lost a quid. With mental betting if you lose you're losing your mind.

I got a perverse thrill from hoping for the complete opposite outcome to probably everyone else in the country waiting for the results..

..however you have a point about the mind thing..

[Audley Strange]

I only buy a ticket when the astronomical chance of winning seems suitable recompense. Which is to say at least £14 million, any less than that is not respectable odds. Also I pick numbers randomly, the addiction thing starts with "lucky" numbers.