Misleading National Lottery advert.

JJG

JReacher1 wrote: »

I think you've misunderstood how the rules of probability work. The odds of winning the lottery don't halve because you've bought two tickets.

Let's break it down to a die roll which is the same as the lottery but on a much smaller level, and say you could bet on what number was rolled.

If you could choose only one number you would have a 1 in 6 chance of winning.

If you could choose two numbers you would have a 2 in 6 chance of winning, which is exactly the same odds as 1 in 3.

If you could choose 3 numbers you would have a 3 in 6 chance of winning, which is exactly the same odds as 1 in 2 (or fifty fifty).

And so on.

apcd2

I've heard this advert a few times on the radio and think a complaint to the ASA would in all likelyhood be upheld. It finishes with "Don't let it be them, play makes it possible". The inference is that 'making it possible' refers to stopping someone else winning which, as others have said, is simply not true.

I'd imagine the ASA would take any misleading information in a gambling advert seriously although by the time they've investigated the campaign is likely to have run its course anyway.