Metropol

My mate won £500 on one.

Somehow, I knew there was going to be a sting in the tail of that one.

I actually play the lottery games quite a lot. I am quite the amateur gambler and have won quite nicely over the last few months. In June, I had £100 on the Dream Number, and in the last few months I have had over £100 on scratchcards.

My general rule is that I put £20 to one side every week for gambling purposes. I can't remember the last time I came in with any less than £15. I would say most of the time bring back more than £25.

During the National Hunt season, most of it goes on the horses (which I tend to do quite well at), not so good at the flat racing so I tend to play the lottery using a few 'perms'.

A few trade secrets.
Buy 8 lucky dips for the Dream Number - it will take a few draws, but by doing this you are increasing the chance of winning £100 (or more) down to about 1 in 125 per draw. This means if you win within 10 draws (and I did), your profit will be at the very least £20. You have a 1 in 12.5 chance of making a significant profit, not to mention the chance of winning smaller prizes (£2 4 in 5 or £10 - 1 in 12) along the way.

One I have heard from someone else is buy 25 tickets for the Hotpicks 'Pick 2' draw, using every number from 1-49 at least once (you will have to use one number twice). You will make £40 if one of your combinations comes up. I am told that it is 'likely' that at least one will come up. In fact, the odds are approximately 1 in 3.2, so worth a punt for a profit of £15. There is also the possibility of up to three wins each time. I remain skeptical about this one, due to the large initial outlay.

I tend to find if you buy 4 £1 scratchcards, the chance of you winning £7 or above tends to be quite good. Of course, there is no analysis that can be done on this as the only odds on the back are the overall chance of winning a prize.

Remember, though, the odds are always in the favour of the 'house'. Play until you win, then move on to something else generally (particularly with scratchcards), and only ever gamble what you can afford to gamble!!!

I will finish by giving a summary of my scratchcard successes this week.

1. Monopoly (£2) - Not a Winner
2. Monopoly (£2) - Not a Winner
3. Monopoly (£2) - Win £4
4. Monopoly (£2) - Not a Winner
5. Monopoly (£2) - Win £20
6. £250,000 (£2) - Win £2
7. Monopoly (£2) - Win £2

Total Outlay - £14 : Winnings - £28

Doubled my money so far!

(Oh and I always buy scratchcards when there is nobody else in the store, and scratch them at home to avoid looking to pikey!!!)

I won £7.60 on Euromillions, once.

I won £2 on a scratchy earlier today.

I object to (and don't play) the lottery on principle as it funds the 2012 London olympics, which I didn't want in the first place and feel is a huge waste of money.

I thought it was only a handful of things that fund the Olympics like Dream Number, and a couple of scratch cards?

onetrickpony wrote:I thought it was only a handful of things that fund the Olympics like Dream Number, and a couple of scratch cards?

Correct

Hmmphh!!! You win some you lose some! Got to be innit to win it and all that blah.

I feel absolutely no bitterness towards the lady who just won 35million. None at all. I am not at all envious, honestly i'm not, really i'm not. *If i say it enough times i might believe it.< bitch>*

I've never won a prize bigger than £2 from a scratchcard. Generally only buy them from the local shop after the moneybox cash machine got taken away in order to make a purchase for cashback. Must probably buy about 10 per year.

My parents to date have won (in total) about £200 from scratchcards (dating back all the time to when they first came out) and have only ever won £20 from the main draw (in the form of two £10 prizes) - again dating back to when the lottery started.

I guess my family and I just aren't that lucky.