Santa:
It’s a tax for the mathematically challenged.
With more tickets sold in underprivileged areas at a tax rate of 27% (?), its more like a tax on the poor and desperate!
and then when you realise that the profits from the lottery go to Canada…
Our new village hall was part-funded by the lottery, so keep buying the tickets folks. Some other village might need a new hall.
Heard about a fella in a town near us who won £100,000 and bought fish and chips for everyone in the street!
Evil8Beezle:
Harry Monk:
Santa:
It’s a tax for the mathematically challenged.But the thing is, that the advantages that would come from winning a large amount of money (which thousands of people have done) far outweigh the disappointment of losing the £2 stake. Additionally, numerous “good causes” have been helped by lottery funding, the vast majority of which would have had no other way of obtaining funding.
So I play, without any genuine expectation of winning a large sum of money, but content to be funding the restoration of historic buildings, hospices, tree planting, holidays for disabled people etc etc etc.
I’m with ya there, we know it’s highly unlikely we will win, but as you say, about half of the money goes to charity.
Plus there is a chance, no matter how slim, IT COULD BE ME!!!
P.S. I don’t know how many tickets are sold each time, but I wouldn’t grumble if I ONLY won the millionaire raffle!
+1 a million would set me up for the rest of my life
peirre:
merc0447:
If you want to do a lottery do premium bonds. At least you’ll get your stake back if nothing else.Buying PB is about as smart as buying over 50’s life cover from Micheal Parkinson, the interest rate on PB is pants, your actually better off sticking it in the bank and getting 1-2% interest.
But there isn’t an “interest rate” on Premium Bonds, the whole point is that you are taking a punt. My Mum downsized this year and bought £30,000’s worth of Premium Bonds with the equity, and has already won more in three months than she would have received in interest in five years with the best-paying High Street savings account. Meanwhile I have £20’s worth of Premium Bonds bought in 1959 (When £12 a week was a good wage) which have never won a penny.
merc0447:
If you want to do a lottery do premium bonds. At least you’ll get your stake back if nothing else.
But you don’t get your stake back! Your “stake” with Premium Bonds is the interest (at 1.35%) on the money you have deposited with NS&I. This is why your bonds have to be held for at least a month before they are entered in the draw.
e.g. Buy £5000 of PBs on in January and they will not be entered in the draw until March, by which time they would have earned between £5 and £6 in interest (depending on the exact date purchased). This £5-£6 is your stake, and you cannot get it back unless you win.
It’s just the same as putting the £5k in a savings account and using the interest to buy lottery tickets.
Not quite Roymondo. Any winnings that you reinvest go straight in to the next draw.
del949:
Not quite Roymondo. Any winnings that you reinvest go straight in to the next draw.
Big deal. And makes no difference at all to what I said - you do not get your stake back with Premium Bonds, and anyone who claims otherwise is demonstrating complete ignorance of how the scheme works (which is exactly how NS&I like it).
If you “reinvest” any winnings from a particular month, you have to leave that money with NS&I for a whole month (until the next draw is made). As with your initial “investment”, you forego any interest on that sum for that month, and the interest becomes your “stake” for the next draw. You cannot recoup that interest.
Harry Monk:
But there isn’t an “interest rate” on Premium Bonds, the whole point is that you are taking a punt. My Mum downsized this year and bought £30,000’s worth of Premium Bonds with the equity, and has already won more in three months than she would have received in interest in five years with the best-paying High Street savings account. Meanwhile I have £20’s worth of Premium Bonds bought in 1959 (When £12 a week was a good wage) which have never won a penny.
There is - it is currently 1.35%
The odds of any single £1 bond winning a prize in a given month’s draw are 26,000/1 - So your Mum’s £30k holding should be expected to win a prize every month (when averaged out over time), whereas your £20 holding should be turning up a prize every 100 years or so…
I had £20k of PBs a few years ago. I only held them for about a year all told, but in that time I won a couple of small prizes (£25/£50) plus one prize of £1,000 - so I was also well ahead on that deal 
Roymondo:
Big deal. And makes no difference at all to what I said - you do not get your stake back with Premium Bonds, and anyone who claims otherwise is demonstrating complete ignorance of how the scheme works (which is exactly how NS&I like it).
Roymondo:
I had £20k of PBs a few years ago. I only held them for about a year all told, but in that time I won a couple of small prizes (£25/£50) plus one prize of £1,000 - so I was also well ahead on that deal
With all due respect Roy, these two posts directly contradict each other, in that when you sold your Premium Bonds you did indeed get your stake money back. The value of the stake money may have been diminished in real terms, but you got in back nevertheless.
OK. Its your Turn now. Had not even a single Number right
Harry Monk:
Roymondo:
Big deal. And makes no difference at all to what I said - you do not get your stake back with Premium Bonds, and anyone who claims otherwise is demonstrating complete ignorance of how the scheme works (which is exactly how NS&I like it).Roymondo:
I had £20k of PBs a few years ago. I only held them for about a year all told, but in that time I won a couple of small prizes (£25/£50) plus one prize of £1,000 - so I was also well ahead on that dealWith all due respect Roy, these two posts directly contradict each other, in that when you sold your Premium Bonds you did indeed get your stake money back. The value of the stake money may have been diminished in real terms, but you got in back nevertheless.
Not at all, Harry - With PBs your “stake” is the interest earned on the money you lend to HMG for a month. In my case (assuming the interest rate was 1.35% back then - it may well have been higher) that amounted to about £22.50 for each of the 12 months that I held those bonds. It was that £22.50 that I gambled each month, not the £20k. Had I been so inclined, I could instead have put that £20k in an interest-bearing savings account (an NS&I Income Bond, for example) and bought lottery tickets each month with the interest payment (or put it on the horses, dogs, football pools etc).