What a lottery!
Combining two sources creates “A voluntary tax on the stupid”.
Impatiently waiting to pay for my Saturday paper, the lady at the counter looked (as my dad would have put it) as if she hadn’t two half-pennies to rub together. Her clothes were old and very worn and her hair not brushed since last Saturday at least. She bought one of those magazines aimed at young girls that have alluring bangles and sparkly things on the front cover and which I know from getting them myself for a granddaughter cost about £1.60. But the lady’s bill came to £18.60. Why?
Three scratch cards and three lottery tickets for tonight and three for something in the week is the answer.
Some statistical wag has just calculated that if one buys a lottery ticket at 4pm on a Monday, the odds favour your death within the next 40 minutes rather than a win on the lottery next Saturday. Whether that is any win or the massive Euro Lottery win just announced, I know not but the point is well made.
The couple who have just picked up £48m or so will be ruined. No ordinary human being can handle that sort of windfall. Plenty extraordinary souls cannot either. 48 people winning £1m each would have made more sense.
Was the lady just plain stupid or is the scratch card and lottery phenomenon symptomatic of a despairing society where there are only two hopes left – make the beautiful granddaughter happy for a few minutes and to get something big to get me out of this lot?
More financial comment at www.jgwalkersmith.co.uk
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