Reply to: National Lottery

[Tingles]

I didn't start it! Sadly, Tingles lost his/her bottle.

I know when a joke has had it's day...

[RichardCranium]

I am just as likely to die in next 10 minutes as win.

Ooh, that's an interesting statistic. But I think that might be 90 seconds rather than 10 minutes. Assuming you buy one ticket and no more.

If you're 46 and your life expectancy is, let's say, mid 80s, then you've got about 21 million minutes left. So every 90 seconds you've much the same chance of popping your clogs as one lottery ticket winning the jackpot. (There's a lot of assumptions in that sentence.)

But since you are buying two lottery tickets a week, if we assume you would keep that up until your mid 80s, then that's 2 x 52 x 40 = 4160 lottery tickets and the chance of any one of those winning the jackpot is the same as you dying in the next 4.33 days.

If we take that to its illogical conclusion, if you are alive on Friday, you will never win the lottery jackpot.

[Doggy Styles]

It is very true that the lottery is a tax on the stupid. But I think my £2 a week as it gives me hope that it might just be me. I know I am just as likely to die in next 10 minutes as win. So feel free to call me stupid.

Me too. It's the price of a bit of fun.

[BrilloPad]

Apologies for my ignorance as I've come to this country after receiving solid (minus political stuff and falsified history) Soviet edukation: at what point in the UK people get taught about probabilities and stuff like "games theory"?

It is very true that the lottery is a tax on the stupid. But I think my £2 a week as it gives me hope that it might just be me. I know I am just as likely to die in next 10 minutes as win. So feel free to call me stupid.

[AtW]

Soviets Citizens never believed the propaganda

Rubbish, believed back then and many still believe now (despite all evidence to the contrary).

Communism was a serious threat to any country - they were funded in large part by USSR, hence it seems pretty reasonable to take action against such existential threat.

Do you know what NKVD (later KGB) was putting people to GULAGs and shooting them? Neightbour in shared flat was writing false report about bad joke or wrong word, hoping that he'll get the flat to himself. Or for being late to work - that was criminal at some point. Or for visiting foreign conference - those people got 15-20 years, which meant certain death in GULAG.

So don't give me tulip about how there was "KGB" in the UK.

[Paddy]

Maybe, but you did not get millions of UK citizens who objected it in any way or were juste suspected of not being compliant with Govt shipped to Scotland (for lack of Siberia) live rest of their lives in GULAGs there.

The only difference between the East and West in the cold war was that Soviets Citizens never believed the propaganda but the western citizens believed the west’s properganda.

We have are own version of KGB
http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/ind...=698&Itemid=55

[AtW]

The problem there was it was that the Russian Revolution still had not finished. I think it has only been in the finishing stages this past 20 years.

No, it hasn't indeed finished - and in the last 10 years any gains that started appearing in 1991 got reversed back.

[RichardCranium]

Just wait until SuitYou sees your new avatar

I didn't start it! Sadly, Tingles lost his/her bottle.

[OwlHoot]

Just wait until SuitYou sees your new avatar

[RichardCranium]

Maybe, but you did not get millions of UK citizens who objected it in any way or were juste suspected of not being compliant with Govt shipped to Scotland (for lack of Siberia) live rest of their lives in GULAGs there.

The problem there was it was that the Russian Revolution still had not finished. I think it has only been in the finishing stages this past 20 years.

We did all our decades of massacres and oppression when trying to revolt from under the rule of the Catholic Church, and the unpleasantness that occurred after the Civil War when we had a go at being a Republic in the 1600s.

[AtW]

we were also taught a load of BS propaganda about the British Empire and how God gave Israel to the Jews and that Africans live in mud huts.

Maybe, but you did not get millions of UK citizens who objected it in any way or were juste suspected of not being compliant with Govt shipped to Scotland (for lack of Siberia) live rest of their lives in GULAGs there.

[RichardCranium]

I remember a Radio 4 programme exploring the odds when the lottery first started. They reckoned that roulette odds were better.

The Roulette Wheel is actually the most generous form of betting. If it has just the one green '0' (some have a '00' too) then, on average, you get back 97.3% of your stake on each bet. For the National Lottery I believe it is 50%.

[Sysman]

£1 wins >£2m @ 14000000-1?

You'd be foolish not to play...

I remember a Radio 4 programme exploring the odds when the lottery first started. They reckoned that roulette odds were better.

The first time I bought a scratch card (curiosity got the better of me), I "won" 2 quid, whereupon the newsagent persuaded me to have another go, which of course didn't win. Theoretically I had won 2 quid but I'd spent 2 to get there. It struck me that the Lottery could afford to give away as many of those as they fancied.

[EternalOptimist]

You'd think the Russkis would get their real world sorted a bit, before they started concentrating on games

[OwlHoot]

When the advert comes on the telly and says "You've gotta be in it to win it!"

Exactly

OH in "Miser: Please, please God let me win the jackpot! God: "Mate, meet me half way - Buy a bleedin ticket!!" mode