Tuesday, January 03, 2006

You can’t win it… if you don’t claim it.


I really feel sorry for the poor soul who failed to claim their £9.4 million Lotto jackpot today. The ticket was purchased in Doncaster in July of 2005. You have 180 days to claim a win or the money is lost.

I think the month of July is a cursed month for gambling!

In July 2004 a
£20.1 million winning ticket was unclaimed, so the money was re-invested into the “Good Causes” pot.

In the
summer of 2002 a smaller figure of £7.5 million went unclaimed.

The up-side is that since the Lotto was launched in the UK in 1994, £17 billion pounds has been distributed through the Good Causes pot.

What makes me laugh about my fellow Englishmen is their capacity to enjoy seeing others suffer for their downfall. Who can forget the young May and Martyn Tott from Watford who say their lives were “ruined” because their forgot to collect their £3 million winnings? A public opinion poll at the time registered overwhelming support that the couple should not be paid the winnings as they missed the claims deadline.

Of course the trouble with the public who win the Lotto… can they be trusted to spend it correctly? I was in the queue at Tesco last Saturday morning to collect my £1 weekly ticket when the lady in front of me presented her winning ticket from the previous week. She won £60 with four numbers – and threw the whole amount back on 20 more lotto numbers and 40 scratch cards.

I stared at her incredulously and raised my eyebrows at the bloke selling the tickets “What a stupid moo!” he said. I think I agree.

1 comment:

dom said...

Silly moo indeed ! I'm ecstatic on the rare occasion I win a tenner.
I can see 9 million going to the ballet and theatre and the remaining 400,000 going to a really good cause.Shame.