Being perpetually poor, well no, not really, that would be disingenuous to those genuinely in poverty, so, how about if I say, just perpetually not rich? That’s a bit better I think. But I do like to buy lottery tickets once in a while.
Just in case you aren’t ‘au fait,’ with what a lottery is, here is a dictionary definition: “A game, often organised by a state, or a state permitted charity, in which numbered and coded tickets, with lines of randomly chosen numbers from a set selection (ie numbers 1-50), are sold to ‘players.’ If a player’s line of numbers matches those drawn in a ‘lucky’ draw, those ticket holders will be lottery winners.
The names of some of the state lotteries around the world have their own character too. New Zealand has the ‘Golden Kiwi,’ named after its national symbol, a nocturnal, flightless bird, which so far perfectly describes my lottery winning efforts. Nigeria has a ‘Give-and-Take (sounds dicey!),’ Malaysia has a ‘Special CashSweep,’ South Korea its ‘Special Lottery 500,’ Denmark the ‘Landbrugslotteriet,’ Germany a ‘Glukspirale,’ but I like best the ‘El Gordo de la Primitive,’ the ‘big fat one,’ or its Christmas themed counterpart, the El Gordo de Navidad,’ which must be the big fat Christmas one, I guess.
In the England, since 1698, it has been illegal to run a lottery unless sanctioned by the state and to generate money for ‘good causes.’ Ironically, or maybe oxymoronically, the ‘Million Lottery,’ and the ‘Malt Lottery,’ had been used by the British Government of the time to... wait for it... fund successive wars, namely against the Jacobites in Scotland, France and Spain. You couldn’t make it up, could you?
They do say you can’t buy love and some lottery winners have counted themselves unlucky, but honestly, you would have to be as thick as two short planks to not make even a couple of million work for you, wouldn’t you? John McGuinness was one, after winning £10 million in 1997, he decided to back his local football club, Livingston FC, who promptly went bust and left McGuinness the next best thing to a pauper. Sixteen-year-old Callie Evans, cashed a £1.8 million winner’s cheque in 2003, and in 2022 confessed that the lot had been swallowed up by cosmetic surgery and a dissolute lifestyle. I guess now she is pretty and penniless? Well, they do say “fools and their money are soon parted.”
American Edwin Castro was the sole winner of the California Lottery Jackpot in 2022, winning the incredible sum of $2.05 billion, which was to be spread over 30 years. However, Castro opted for an instant payment option of just $872 million instead. No matter how you look at it, or even which option you would choose, that is an awful lot of cash isn’t it?
In Europe, the largest pay out so far has been the Italian Super Enalotto Jackpot win in February of 2024, which saw a syndicate of 90 players pocket nearly €4 million each, a total of €359 million. Spain’s La Primitiva Lottery, in 2015, paid out €98.4 million to a sole player from Barcelona, while previously, in 2006, France’s SuperLotto paid out €30 million to two lucky winners. The largest EuroMillions Jackpot pay out thus far saw a single anonymous ticket-holder scoop £195 million in 2022. The national Lottery in the UK, somewhat strangely hasn’t paid out a record amount since 1996, when three players scooped £14 million each.
So, to move to the crux of my thoughts. It’s all very well marketing these lotteries as multi and mega-millions prizes, but rather than having one winner of £100 million for example, wouldn’t any society be better served by having a hundred different millionaire winners? Imagine it... a hundred families could pay off their mortgage, maybe retire creating more jobs, buy a new car, boosting local industry, and with greater spending power, maybe get them off benefits, maybe get them onto private medical schemes, thus supporting their local communities... and so much more.
That way, as well as raising money for genuine good causes, lotteries could help more people, more families who genuinely need it. The world really doesn’t need more millionaires, like mega-millionaires, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a greater of families get the ultimate helping hand?
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