Sunday 8 February 2009

How Fair Are The Lotto Good Cause Handouts ?

It Could Be You getting the benefit.
But only if you live in a Labour Controlled Constituency

by johnofgwent

I have never bought a lottery ticket. I never will. I saw the fear in the eyes of the guy who lived across the road from my parents old house. He won a share from a syndicate. Despite the request for anonymity his name was in the south wales echo in two days, his photo was in it two days later, and then the bricks started coming through his windows. I have said since day one that I will buy a beer for anyone I know after they win the lottery, and pay for it with a smile knowing it is the last time the "lucky winner" will be able to accept a drink from anyone, family, friend, or stranger, without dark thoughts akin to "whats the bugger want, why else would he be nice to me like this" poisoning the taste of the beer once served.

As a businessman I insured myself against the potential disaster of injuring myself to the point where I am alive, sensing everything, and utterly unable to work ever again. I insured myself very well with a policy that started paying out after a year and paid up until i reached retirement age. It only cost me about fifteen quid a month. I said "is that all" and the salesman said, yes, because while the consequences of needing to claim are dire, the odds of making a claim are minimal. If you fall off a ladder below a certain height the odds are you'll recover well before payout time, and return to work. Fall off it much higher up and you will die. So no payout.

And he was right. I was betting on a tiny subset of one number of a roulette wheel. And delighted to stake the monthly bet because if that number came up that way, I would be in up to my broken neck in brown stuff .

A couple of years after the national lottery started I got a junk mail from Norwich Union asking if I wanted to insure my company against its key workers winning the lottery and heading for the costa del sangria or somesuch. The monthly payment for a level of cover equal to my accident insurance was about five quid. Which meant Norwich Union thought it three times more likely I would end my days as Christopher Reeve did than I would win the lottery.

So I've known and said loudly for ages that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at maths.

But what of the good causes then ? Surely that's a reason to dip into your pocket. After all, you want to see the Olympic Ideal given a decent home in 2012 don't you ? Like the advert on the promotional material for their olympic scratch cards ....

Well guess what. The Daily Telegraph have discovered that the allocation of funds from the "Big Lottery Fund", controlled by a panel comprising five labour politicians and nothing like as many from opposing parties, is biased towards projects in prediminantly Labour areas, a piece of crooked skullduggery coldly planned to give New Liebour candidates something to cling on to and show the people they canvass at the next election.

What a bunch of slimeballs.

You can read the gory details here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I never do the Lottery because of the so called "good causes" it goes to like Black Lesbian one armed single mothers group released from prison (or something like that !), i remember they refused our War Heroes a grant i thought how uttely despicable. Brian Gerrish has a theory on Camelot and i'm inclined to agree with him, he say's Common Purpose hijacked the lottery as a place to launder money for groups and charities that will destroy Britain from within, how many times have you heard grants going to asylum charities and the like ?, as i said i refuse to play the lottery on the grounds of i will not be part of the destruction of my country. politicalMIZZ