Barry: It’s hope over reason

Nov 18 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HAPPY birthday to the National Lottery, which turns 15 tomorrow.

Since it was launched, it has paid out more than £36bn and created more than 2,300 millionaires.

And there are also the countless millions of people who have lost more than they’ve won in the last 15 years. Except they don’t make the front page.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an anti-gambling puritan.

I’m not against betting, but I am against irrational betting - and that’s exactly what the National Lottery is.

You can make a case for gambling on football or the horses because it involves an element of skill – as I found out to my cost this summer when I went to the races at Beverley and lost money on all seven races.

But it makes no sense to risk your hard-earned cash on a game of chance – whether that’s a lottery or a roulette wheel – because the house always wins.

And yet, each week that’s what millions of people do.

In my student days I worked in a shop in Belfast. Customers would come in, pay £1 for a scratchcard and then stand at the till scraping away.

“I won,” they would declare. And more often than not their "prize" was £1 – exactly the amount they had just given me for the card.

I wanted to tell them: “No, you did not win. You gave me a pound, I gave you a card which you scratched for a few seconds and now I’m giving you that pound back.”

But of course I didn’t say that. I bit my tongue and handed back the quid. It was all so irrational. And I think my scratching customers knew that.

But the National Lottery isn’t about reason, it’s about hope. Yes, the scratchcard “win” was only £1 this time, but next time it could be £10,000.

And yes, it’s true that you’ve never won the jackpot in 15 years of trying.

But this week might be your week. It could be you.