National lottery price/prize changes

Never do the normal Lotto anyway. Never won a £10 so throwing £2 at it instead of £1 is even worst.

I'll stick to my scratch cards and the big Euro Lotto pots !!
 
The cost of playing the Lottery is set to double - but more winners will share in the prize pot, operator Camelot has announced.
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Well this is untrue unless they are changing the format of the game itself. Changing the prize amount won't give you 'more' winners, and apart from the three & four number prizes, the rest either fall or don't increase to anywhere near double what they are now.

However, the prize pot for matching five numbers will drop by £500 to £1,000
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The odds of getting 5 numbers is 1 in 55,492. Given you now are paying £2 it means anyone who does it is only getting 1% of what they should get if there was no edge and prizes were directly proportional to the chances of them happening. The three number prize is hardly anything to shout about given you only have a 1 in 57 chance of doing it meaning even with the £25 prize you are still getting less than a quarter what the odds payout should be (at £2 a stake).

But then that's why they call it a fool's tax I suppose.

Can't be arsed to do all the maths but on the face of it it looks like Camelot will be making a hell of a lot more money than they are now by doing this.

If the payouts were edge-free (i.e Camelot aimed to make no profit or loss from the game) then this is what the payouts should be at £2 a stake....

6 numbers - £28 million (They are offering £5m)
5 + bonus - £4.6 million (They wanna payout £50k)
5 numbers - £110k (They wanna payout £1,000)
4 numbers - £2k (They wanna payout £100)
3 numbers - £114 (They wanna payout £25)

Of course they can't run the game at break even but it seems they are raking in more than twice (a lot more) than what they'd expect to pay out in prizes. I'm all for giving to charity but Jesus!

But then the Lotto generally isn't played by people who are good with maths/odds, but rather people "seeking the dream", which makes changing the lower prizes whilst barely raising the top prize even more stupid. If you play the Lotto to try and win £25 off a £2 stake, there are are more likely ways of doing it.
 
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Be suprised if the prize does raise to £25, I imagine even more people are going to give it a miss, I remember when a weekly jackpot was between 9 & 10m now you need a double rollover to hit that figure.

Probably get more people doing the health lottery now though.
 
estebanrey said:
Well this is untrue unless they are changing the format of the game itself. Changing the prize amount won't give you 'more' winners, and apart from the three number prize, the rest either fall or don't increase to anywhere near double what they are now.



The odds of getting 5 numbers is 1 in 55,492. Given you now are paying £2 it means anyone who does it is only getting 1% of what they should get if there was no edge and prizes were directly proportional to the chances of them happening. The three number prize is hardly anything to shout about given you only have a 1 in 57 chance of doing it meaning even with the £25 prize you are still getting less than a quarter what the odds payout should be (at £2 a stake).

But then that's why they call it a fool's tax I suppose.

Can't be arsed to do all the maths but on the face of it it looks like Camelot will be making a hell of a lot more money than they are now by doing this.

If the payouts were edge-free (i.e Camelot aimed to make no profit or loss from the game) then this is what the payouts should be at £2 a stake....

6 numbers - £28 million (They are offering £5m)
5 + bonus - £4.6 million (They wanna payout £50k)
5 numbers - £110k (They wanna payout £1,000)
4 numbers - £2k (They wanna payout £100)
3 numbers - £114 (They wanna payout £25)

Now compare that to what they payout! Of course they can't run the game at break even but it seems they are raking in more than twice (a lot more) than what they'd expect to pay out in prizes.
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I think you will find the maths is out here.

If the odds of getting 5 numbers is 1 in 55,492 and this was the only prize available then you would expect 110k, however the entry could achieve 5 different levels of prizes so the edge-free payout would be significantly less than the above.
 
I get emails about the Irish lottery a lot. Apparently the odds of winning the jackpot are much higher, so I play that one. It's only £5 a throw. Still not sure how to check my numbers though. Come to think of it, I've never actually submitted...
 
i just do 1 lucky dip now and again and i get the odd £10 win here and there, id rather spend £2 and get £25 back as an 'irregular player'
 
Abyss said:
I think you will find the maths is out here.
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If you get 5 numbers, you have beaten odds of 55k to 1, yet you are getting nowhere near that amount (especially at £2 a stake). The fact you could have won £100 if you'd have not got that 5th number is irrelevant to odds you need to beat and the payout 5 numbers commands.

If it were the case that when you got 5 numbers you also got the prize for 4 numbers and 3 numbers as well that would be different.

I'm looking at it from the player's point of view, not Camelot's.
 
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Matching three numbers will rise from £10 to £25 +£15
Matching four numbers will increase from £60 to £100 +40
Matching five numbers will drop by £500 to £1,000 -£500
Matching five numbers and the bonus number will halve to £50,000 -£50,000

Camelot UK managing director Andy Duncan said: "Our players still love Lotto but after 18 years they say they want more from it.
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Swings and roundabouts.
 
Pretty much. Always had a line on wed and sat, but think I will be cancelling that.

Why double it, instead of just sticking 50p on it? Worked for the euro!
 
estebanrey said:
But then that's why they call it a fool's tax I suppose.

Can't be arsed to do all the maths but on the face of it it looks like Camelot will be making a hell of a lot more money than they are now by doing this.
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A fools tax indeed. I've spent more time and effort and more maths than even I really want to have done trying to come up with a pattern in the history of the numbers (all easily obtainable), and am no closer. I've never played, and won't.
 
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