Beware - People's Postcode Lottery!

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Comments

  • LordVaderUK
    LordVaderUK Posts: 1 Newbie
    Combo Breaker First Anniversary
    I've been a member for some months, and haven't won anything, as far as I know... but it suddenly occurred to me, am I supposed to be checking their website every day/week to see if my postcode is a winner, or will they contact me automatically if it comes up?

    I've tried looking on their website for this information - which is surely a straightforward enough question - but can't find the answer.
  • Patricia_Marchand
    Patricia_Marchand Posts: 7 Forumite
    Well, I would love to know the actual process in defining the postcodes 'wins', is this process hidden? I have been told by them 50% goes to charity the other 50 to winners.
    May be it is something Watch Dog should investigate?
    Like many people I hate been cheated, don't you?
  • maninthestreet
    maninthestreet Posts: 16,127 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    LordVaderUK wrote: »
    I've been a member for some months, and haven't won anything, as far as I know... but it suddenly occurred to me, am I supposed to be checking their website every day/week to see if my postcode is a winner, or will they contact me automatically if it comes up?

    I've tried looking on their website for this information - which is surely a straightforward enough question - but can't find the answer.

    When I won £20 a few months ago, I was notified automatically of my win by email, and the £20 was also paid into my Paypal account automatically,
    "You were only supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off!!"
  • Patricia_Marchand
    Patricia_Marchand Posts: 7 Forumite
    I still think there is something not so right there, my guess is that more will be found out once they have been investigated, we'll see....
  • maninthestreet
    maninthestreet Posts: 16,127 Forumite
    First Anniversary
    Tommok wrote: »
    My Mum has seemingly (I haven't seen the letter) got sent a letter saying she's won £825,000. She's pretty certain she has never registered so I assume this is a con/advertising hook to get her to register??

    More likely to be an 'Advanced Fee' fraud attempt from some scammer than a genuine letter from the PPL.
    "You were only supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off!!"
  • Cornucopia
    Cornucopia Posts: 16,154 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Photogenic
    edited 18 May 2015 at 9:48AM
    artbaron wrote: »
    The outlay vs odds vs prizes structure of the Postcode lottery is terrible. Far, far better off playing Roulette.

    Can you give us a mathematical breakdown of this, as it's something I've wondered about?

    More generally, I know the some MSE posters work to a different definition of "scam". On the basis of some of those definitions, all lotteries (perhaps all gambling) would qualify as scams, even though they may be managed perfectly properly, within the relevant regulations.
  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 10,931 Forumite
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    I don't know exactly what the Postcode Lottery payout ratio is, but someone said above that it's worse than the National Lottery's, and the National Lottery's appears to be about 50%. By comparison, if you play roulette on a wheel with a single '0' the payout ratio is approximately 97%.

    Lotteries are always terrible value compared with a simple bet like a roulette wheel - and if the charity angle is the reason you bet, it's still terrible value because you could donate half of your stake to charity and then take the other half to the casino and both you and the charity would be much better off. Still, lotteries exist to exploit a whole range of mental weaknesses and the poor payout ratio is really beside the point.
  • Cornucopia
    Cornucopia Posts: 16,154 Forumite
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    How do I get to a £1m payout on Roulette, though?7

    Can I roll up and just bet £1? What are my chances of winning £1m if I do that?
  • bod1467
    bod1467 Posts: 15,214 Forumite
    Odds of winning the 3-balls prize on Lotto is about 1 in 56. Odds of winning the jackpot is just under 1 in 14 million.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lottery_(United_Kingdom_and_the_Isle_of_Man)#Lotto

    Anyone wanting to explode their brains with Mathematics:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_mathematics

    :)
  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 10,931 Forumite
    First Anniversary First Post Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 19 May 2015 at 11:28AM
    How do I get to a £1m payout on Roulette, though?7

    Can I roll up and just bet £1? What are my chances of winning £1m if I do that?
    Of course you can. Take your £1 and bet on any single number. If you win, take your £36 winnings and bet it all on a single number again. Then again. Then on a "street" (a row of three numbers). Then finally bet on red or black. If all those bets come off, and you've wagered all your winnings each time, you've now won £1,100,000. (You could probably get closer to a £1m "lottery" but you'd need a longer sequence of spins.)

    Your chances are roughly 1 in 1,280,000, but that's considerably better than the lottery. If you did that every week for eternity, on average you'd spend £1,280,000 and win £1,100,000. On the Lottery you'd spend more like £2,200,000, based on what little we know about their payout ratios.

    (edit - corrected numbers as I forgot to take into account the return of the stake.)
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