Dear LPG,

Recently I received a telephone call from the national lottery.   What sounded like a really nice young man introduced himself and then told me that he wanted to offer me some free tickets.  That statement was his ‘interest grabber’ and he then asked if I had ever played, and when I said not for a long time, I was offered ten free, no obligation, complimentary tickets which he would send to my home (he addressed me by name, was able to quote my address, and he rang me, which means that they can use all that personal information again).    I asked the obvious question, “What’s the catch?”, and was told that they are just trying to re-generate a bit of interest and get more people playing.

…Then came the catch… The advisor asked if I had ever heard of a ‘play period’ where I would be offered three months of play for a reduced rate.  All I had to do is start a direct debit which I could stop at any time after the three months (if I didn’t forget).

I know that, like the post code lottery and many other charities, the organisers are just trying to generate a bit of guaranteed future income, but I have always thought of the lottery as something to do if you are in a shop near a machine with a couple of spare £1.00 coins in your pocket, although I know people who pay out pounds per week and who pay by direct debit for the thrill of the dream.

I note the advert offering a pay out of £10,000.00 a month for life and would like to make the point that as we get older that is likely to be a cheaper spend for the lottery organisers in the light of the amount of months we pensioners have already lived through and the relatively few that we are more likely to have left.

When I see adverts like that I have to again ask about our motives for playing.  Do we part with our cash (or give such organisations a free pass into our bank accounts) to give to a charity and help the poor to get richer, or are we more interested in becoming richer ourselves?   I am a firm believer that if you are going to win anything you will win regardless of whether you have ten tickets or just the one.

My last thought is that most people who play regularly win relatively small amounts of money so, if you do still play on a weekly basis, perhaps you should do a little maths...

Add up how much you spent playing the lottery last year, and then add up the amount you actually won.  That way you can work out if there was a personal financial advantage in doing it at all.  For most of us there isn’t,  so if giving money to charity is our reason for playing, for most it might be better to just give the charity some money and save the rest.

DL, Dulwich

LPG has found some of the most recent lottery adverts and notes that, as DL mentions, there is not a lot of content reminding us of the good causes we may be helping.  We also found an online point of view that concurs with DS’s.

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