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Should I rush out and buy a lottery ticket?

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  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    edited August 2018
    No
    My Dad used to give my Mum £5 to buy five lines for the lottery every Saturday. She would buy 4 and put the other £1 in a jar then tell Dad sometime in the year that he'd won £20 or whatever and 'pay him out' from the savings jar. Morally ambiguous strategy but it made him happy.

    I'm with PP on the OP, though. You don't get two lots of random good luck in one day
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    Someone told me the tale of a person who was asked by their partner to put one of those complicated bets on a horse. It didn't cost much but there was an astronomical number of variables ( as you can tell, I'm not au fait with betting terminology).
    Anyway, he didn't put the bet on and kept the money.
    The horse won and he went into hiding.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    No
    Yes she wouldn't have been quite so brazen. Dad had his regular numbers (3 lines) and she was supposed to get two lucky dips, so she'd just get one. 
    I was in our local shop and bought a ticket a few weeks back (as I do, perhaps half a dozen times a year, on a whim). I asked the chap for 'two lucky dips'. He said 'I can give you two dips, I'm not promising they'll be lucky'. Which seemed fair enough, really.

    Normally I drop a few coins in the Air Ambulance collecting tin or buy specific items for a dog charity that I support. Lottery tickets are like buying raffle tickets at the pub quiz - just to join in, no expectation of winning anything. A (very) distant cousin won a few million on one of the lotteries some years ago and, as Dad said at the time - that's as close to us as it's ever likely to come. It is nice to win £10 now and again, but that's as far as my ambition goes  B)
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • No
    Back in my teaching days I used to do a class on probability in which I pointed out that you are (considerably) more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery!
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    No
    I'd say you're statistically more likely to be hit by lightning one a month for a year , than you are to win the lottery.
    Devon.
  • AuntyRachAuntyRach Posts: 5,291
    Yes
    My thought is - yes go and buy one, and then when you don’t win you can officially be sure that the toast was not a sign.

    We often say, in work, that if we are unfortunate to get any bodily fluids on us then we should definitely buy a ticket...
    None of us have ever won anything, not even my colleague who was so soaked once she had to wash her hair in the sink. 
    My garden and I live in South Wales. 
  • D
    I used to do the PDSA lottery but had to stop.   Still feel guilty about it.
    I wish I was a glow worm
    A glow worm's never glum
    Cos how can you be grumpy
    When the sun shines out your bum!
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I didn't and I'm twice as rich as I would've been now they've gone up to £2 o:)
    In London. Keen but lazy.
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