Is there NO way out?


CF, as regular readers will know, has been "looking for his next opportunity" (aka 'unemployed') for the whole 0f 2009.

One of the tiny, tiny, crumbs of consolation is the thought that maybe, just maybe, the endless search for tedious employment will be obviated by a massive, crushing, life-changing lottery win.

This bloody website cruelly sweeps away even that tiny hope.

All one does is to select one's favourite numbers - you know, the date of birth of your neighbour's dog, the first 12 digits of Kate Moss' phone number and so forth.

The infernal device goes away, crunches some numbers, reticulates some splines and then lays bare the whole ghastly truth.

That's right - it tells you what you would have won, had you entered the same numbers ever since the bloody lottery began, presumably in 1759.

Which, invariably, is not just fuck all, but substantially less than fuck all. That's right - the cost of the tickets is generally well in excess of the few paltry tenner won across the decades.

Damn it; is there to be no escape from this poverty?


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8 comments:

Fausty said...

My Dad used to say "the lottery is a tax on people who can't do maffs".

My hubby is convinced he has a winning system (quite a maths boffin, too!) And he wins regularly - about a tenner every 6 months.

patently said...

the cost of the tickets is generally well in excess of the few paltry tenner won across the decades.

Of course it is. That is how Camelot et al remain in business, pay taxes, and pay out to "good" causes.

Lexander said...

CF from my brief reading of your comments during the past few months I refuse to accept you are unemployable. Even working from home you could find something! Use your undoubted facility for words and writing. Failing that, what about something really physical: mining, road digging, building site labouring?

Norton Folgate said...

I feel your pain as i am in same position, after being in the same job for 20 years i am now unemployed and unless things radically change i am more than likely to stay that way till i lose my house.

The End (Bye Bye!) said...

Sorry to hear about your employment woes, CF. Things will pick up (hopefully).

As for this lottery website - it said I would've made a profit of £654.

Shame I've only been having the same numbers for about a year (it was 'lucky dips' before that).

David Gillies said...

The odds of getting three from six and winning a tenner in the standard Lotto are one in 56.66. You therefore need to play nearly 39 times (at a quid a pop) to get an evens chance of making £10. Similar dismal calculations can be made for matching four balls, five and the bonus ball etc.., and in all the manifold variations of the game now available. So, Fausty, assuming your husband plays every week, it is unclear how spending £26 to win £10 constitutes a 'winning' system, unless you mean 'less losing'.

That in no case does the expectation value of a payoff exceed zero should not be a shock (Camelot would be swiftly bust if this were not so). What is perhaps surprising is how wide the margin is when compared to, e.g. casino games like (European) roulette, where the expectation value is only -0.027.

Don't Call Me Dave said...

My brother has a foolproof method for winning the lottery every week. He doesn't buy a ticket and saves a quid. He's made a fortune since it started!

Don't Call Me Dave said...

Thinking about it, if my brother didn't buy three lines every week, he would save even more!