We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

"Rasta Pickles" wrote in message
...
We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end
up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

The UK lottery has a rollover limit because of this, doesn't the Euro
one?

Also what if someone else wins as well, presumably the prize is
shared? You might only get £45 or £30 million if 1 or 2 others win.

--
Andy

On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 11:13:43 -0800 (PST), Rasta Pickles put finger to
keyboard and typed:

We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

If you buy them online, there's a limit to the maximum you can buy on a
single account. If you buy them in paper over the counter, it would be
physically impossible to buy enough in the time available to you. So the
only way it can be done is if you have a huge number of people all buying
them for you. Either way, it's close enough to be impossible for it not to
be worth trying.

The other problem, of course, is that while you can guarantee getting the
right combination of numbers, you can't guarantee that nobody else will.
And if you end up sharing the jackpot then, overall, you would have lost
millions.

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

On Jan 5, 7:13*pm, Rasta Pickles wrote:
We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. *Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

You want to spend £114million to win £90million?

On Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:40:44 +0000, Mark Goodge
wrote:

On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 11:13:43 -0800 (PST), Rasta Pickles put finger to
keyboard and typed:

We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

If you buy them online, there's a limit to the maximum you can buy on a
single account. If you buy them in paper over the counter, it would be
physically impossible to buy enough in the time available to you. So the
only way it can be done is if you have a huge number of people all buying
them for you. Either way, it's close enough to be impossible for it not to
be worth trying.

The other problem, of course, is that while you can guarantee getting the
right combination of numbers, you can't guarantee that nobody else will.
And if you end up sharing the jackpot then, overall, you would have lost
millions.


Wasn't this done by a syndicate in the USA(?) a few years back. They
set up to buy all the tickets from all the outlets and they printed
all their own tickets to ensure that all combinations were actually
accounted for (I don't remember how this was permitted). Then they
ended up s***ing bricks because one or two of the outlets had sold
some tickets and if they produced a winning number the whole exercise
would have run at a loss.


--
AnthonyL

In message
,
Stephen2 writes
On Jan 5, 7:13*pm, Rasta Pickles wrote:
We were chatting over lunch about these rare occasions when you end up
with a £90m jackpot because it's rolled over half a dozen times or
so. *Assume for the sake of argument that the ticket cost is still
£1.50 and there's no Mickey Mouse raffle.

The odds are something like 1 in 76 million?

So, hypothetically, why did no-one ever borrow £114 million and buy
every single combination of numbers?

They'd have nabbed not only the jackpot but millions of other prizes
as well?

I assume it isn't that simple?

You want to spend £114million to win £90million?
Perhaps he's a politician.
--
Nick (=----)

On 06/01/2011 13:33, Nick wrote:
In message
,
Stephen2 writes

You want to spend £114million to win £90million?
Perhaps he's a politician.

An Irish politician.

On Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:23:32 GMT, AnthonyL put finger to keyboard and
typed:

On Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:40:44 +0000, Mark Goodge
wrote:

The other problem, of course, is that while you can guarantee getting the
right combination of numbers, you can't guarantee that nobody else will.
And if you end up sharing the jackpot then, overall, you would have lost
millions.


Wasn't this done by a syndicate in the USA(?) a few years back. They
set up to buy all the tickets from all the outlets and they printed
all their own tickets to ensure that all combinations were actually
accounted for (I don't remember how this was permitted). Then they
ended up s***ing bricks because one or two of the outlets had sold
some tickets and if they produced a winning number the whole exercise
would have run at a loss.

It was tried in Ireland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...8.E2.8 0.9392
or http://tinyurl.com/6edet2

Mark
--
Blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
Stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

On Jan 6, 1:33*pm, Nick wrote:

Perhaps he's a politician.
--

It was a genuine question?

If I was a politician I'd just raise taxes on fuel and laugh at the
sweaty masses who cheerfully give me 80-odd pence for every litre they
buy without me having to lift a finger.

And then I'd probably raise VAT to 20% and laugh at the sweaty masses
who cheerfully give me 20% without me having to lift a finger.

Life's great in Government, dontcha reckon?

In message
,
Rasta Pickles writes
On Jan 6, 1:33*pm, Nick wrote:

Perhaps he's a politician.

It was a genuine question?

If I was a politician I'd just raise taxes on fuel and laugh at the
sweaty masses who cheerfully give me 80-odd pence for every litre they
buy without me having to lift a finger.

And then I'd probably raise VAT to 20% and laugh at the sweaty masses
who cheerfully give me 20% without me having to lift a finger.

Life's great in Government, dontcha reckon?

Much better than putting the odd penny on Income tax.

Any idea what the increased VAT revenue would require as an addition to
basic rate tax?
--
Gordon H
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