Surely last night’s lotto draw summed it up – a manipulated shambles? The official and published rules were changed, without consultation with anyone, because the operator is a law unto themselves, aren’t they? The new Jackpot rule was only suddenly widely publicised a week or so ago – when needs must, eh? Our supposedly ‘charity’ National Lottery is currently run on behalf of the British Government (who actually have no control over it) by in fact rich excessive profit grabbing Americans Camelot. They are a commercial organisation that make-up the rules year by year as they go along, without any say-so by anyone else, don’t they?

The rules were changed about the Jackpot because they had suddenly, without warning, added to the draw ten extra balls three months ago that had dramatically increased the odds of winning the top prize from thirteen million to forty-five million to one i.e. getting on for only a quarter of the chance. The predictable consequence was an intended more rollovers and indeed few have won it since then (only four until last night instead of one or two a week), so the money had now ‘rolled over’ to a massive £66 million, the largest in its twenty-one year history no less (which encourages the punters with an even higher prize, so they buy yet more tickets, eh?). However, Camelot had calculated that they would maxed out on the potential revenue at £50 million Jackpot so they want to cash in then by releasing all the money (in this draw at thirteen rollovers) and doing a reset on the winners’ value – and they certainly did, didn’t they? Yep, the punters were out there in force, stuffing their hard earned cash (for hours at four hundred £2 tickets a second) into the fund and much into the pockets of the undeserving Camelot executives (as well as their company).

The numbers drawn last night were somewhat of a surprise to many punters though, because the most popular lower numbers (many people choose below 31 to match birthday days and months, you see) didn’t appear too much (the smallest numbered ball being 26) while the NEW numbers, only around for a few months, suddenly burst to the front with a third featuring in the draw). Of course that is statistics for you, as any particular number between 1 & 59 has in a fair draw apparently exactly the same chance of appearing (about thirteen million to one) – nevertheless many find it disturbing that two of only ten new ones 52 & 58 suddenly turn-up on such  a crunch draw, eh?

The National Lottery was introduced under the Tories (PM John Major over twenty years ago) and it was promised that its funds would be used solely for charity/ good causes/ additional projects, and not diverted to replace any government expenditure whatsoever – but you can’t trust politicians can you? No, not only do the Treasury cream-off a substantial and lucrative stealth type tax from the Fund, but they escape with getting money that substitutes for what should be central funding, don’t they? Like they get lottery money spent on school sports facilities, plan cuts to State Arts funding to be plugged by the Lottery, and give directions to the Fund.

A previous blog here suggested that it might be a ‘National Disgrace’, and indeed when the National Lottery was all set-up (and continued), the arrangements were incompetently lax, and that certainly has allowed the operator to rack-off unbelievable profits, and other so-called costs to take their toll, whence only ‘half’ the money becomes available anyway. Moreover, Camelot was able, unilaterally and without consultation with anybody, to double the price of a lottery ticket a couple of year ago. Then also of course the past government had created regulations which have allowed other pseudo-national lotteries (supposed to be outlawed) to be set-up by private companies, who have then snaffled billions of pounds from the public pretending they are providing a desirable public charity service – the so-called Health Lottery and the People’s Postcode Lottery private organisations (even more remote from public control).

[No matter what, we will continue to play the Lottery however much we are ripped-off and conned – you see we are addicted to gambling and trying to get ‘something for nothing’ aren’t we?]