For two years now the United Kingdom has been in the grip of 'Lottery fever'. You cannot go down any High Street without seeing an advert for the National Lottery, exclaiming "It could be you". Actually, it more likely will not be you. The number of different ways of selecting six correct numbers from forty nine numbers is given by the formula 49!/(6!43!). '!' means factorial, ie 6! = 6*5*4*3*2*1, 49! = 49*48*...*2*1 and so on. This means that there are 13,983,816 different ways of getting six numbers from forty nine. So if you keep the same numbers and buy one ticket per week, then within 268,920 years you will definitely win, assuming that all the number combinations come out of the machine in that time.

Of course, the numbers that come out may not be entirely random. There is nothing to stop last weeks numbers coming out this week (and I would imagine there would be no winner if they did), or even the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 come out (with 7 as the bonus ball!). So the figure above can be taken as the least amount of time to win. Basically, you have little chance of winning. Even Camelot say that you have a 1 in 57 chance of winning a prize, so it could cost you £57 to win £10. (I'll swap anyone £50 for £10 anytime. That's a better return than Camelot!)

Camelot takes a 5% cut out of every ticket sold. So if you spent £57, Camelot makes £2.85. This doesn't sound like much, but considering that ticket sales are around 20 million per week, Camelot is making at least £1 million per week. Camelot are now the biggest winners as far as the lottery is concerned (compare this to Richard Branson's offer to give all the profits to charity). The biggest losers are the charities. Even though there are many good ways of giving to charities, the value of giving your money is being eroded. Our nation is suffering from the most acute selfishness it has ever known because of this. The joy of giving has been robbed from the British people, and that is why I call it The National Robbery. This country invented the idea of charities, and charities are now taking a back seat to the stinking lottery. Next year it will get worse with two draws per week. Personally I have never lost any money on the lottery, because I don't play it. I prefer to give money when I can. As Jesus said 'It is better to give than receive'.