Unclaimed Lottery Prize

[BERNADETTE]

A winning lottery ticket worth £55,639 which was sold in Manchester has gone unclaimed for six months and will now be donated to good causes. Wonder why people buy tickets and then neglect to check them. I was wondering who decides which good cause will benefit?? Will the money be spent on good causes in Manchester?? I think it should be but doubt very much that will happen!!!

[emzy]

I wish it was mine lol (as would every other member on here) but I have no idea why you wouldnt check your ticket, why buy it if your not going to (unless the person has lost it, passed away etc)

[Bonnyboy]

Never bought a ticket. I wouldn’t even know how to do it if I had to.

[cashman]

some people do lose em,when they had a few,says cashy who has on a few occasions way back.

[BERNADETTE]

Noticed the jackpot tonight was over seven million which I think is an obscene amount of money. Do you think we would be better doing as they do in Ireland and making it smaller prizes but more of them?

[cashman]

Originally Posted by BERNADETTE

Noticed the jackpot tonight was over seven million which I think is an obscene amount of money. Do you think we would be better doing as they do in Ireland and making it smaller prizes but more of them?

no not if ive won it.

[BERNADETTE]

Originally Posted by cashman

no not if ive won it.

Come on Cashy you could never spend that amount of money even with Paris helping, Just think how fed up you would be when you go clothes shopping

[Lilly]

Originally Posted by BERNADETTE

Do you think we would be better doing as they do in Ireland and making it smaller prizes but more of them?

Yes I do.

A million is more than enough....I would rather see 7 people get a million than one person get 7 million.

[jambutty]

The National Lottery is one of the biggest cons that the government has ever pulled on we long suffering public.

Not only do the government coffers benefit from taxing the takings to the tune of several million pounds each and every week, we who buy the tickets (well you actually because I don’t buy any) are helping to support various charities nominated by the Quango set up for that purpose. Like £50 million to refurbish the Royal Opera House and to pay in part the cost of the forthcoming Olympics to name just two well know charities.

For each pound spent on a Lottery ticket, roughly:
50p is paid to winners in prizes;
28p is given to Good causes;
12p goes to the Government in Lottery duty;
5p is paid to National Lottery retailers on all National Lottery tickets sold; and
5p is retained by the operator to meet costs and return to shareholders.

Since the Lottery started on the 19th November 1994:
£29 billion has been paid out as prizes.
£20 billion has gone to allegedly good causes.
£7 billion to the government.
£2.9 billion to the retailers.
£2.9 billion to Camelot.

Try as I might I haven’t been able to find a list of all the good causes given grants and the amounts given. Maybe someone more skilled than me in doing searches will be able to find such a list? It would make very interesting reading and would undoubtedly tell the true tale.

[Studio25]

Originally Posted by emzy

I wish it was mine lol (as would every other member on here) but I have no idea why you wouldnt check your ticket, why buy it if your not going to (unless the person has lost it, passed away etc)

Let's face it - if you buy one line of numbers, your chances of winning the jackpot are almost one in 14 million.

Put this into context - half a million people die each year. So your chance of dying in any given week is more than 2,000 times higher than winning the lottery that week.

Considering how many jackpot winners collect their winnings, I'm surprised that there aren't more unclaimed tickets...

[Studio25]

In fact, just picking something at random from statistics.gov.uk, you're only slightly more likely to win the jackpot than die from malignant tonsil cancer.

[steeljack]

bit of a slight wander ......back in the days of the football pools , does anyone know if Vernons or Littlewoods had to payout a set amount of the take or how the pot was divided up for number of draws you had , i.e. was there any Govt. oversight , lets face it that was one good cash business

[BERNADETTE]

Originally Posted by Studio25

In fact, just picking something at random from statistics.gov.uk, you're only slightly more likely to win the jackpot than die from malignant tonsil cancer.

What a sobering thought

[jambutty]

Originally Posted by steeljack

bit of a slight wander ......back in the days of the football pools , does anyone know if Vernons or Littlewoods had to payout a set amount of the take or how the pot was divided up for number of draws you had , i.e. was there any Govt. oversight , lets face it that was one good cash business

Like any business, the football pools industry paid tax.

For “Fixed Odds Pools” you won whatever the odds decreed.

For the normal type of football pool all the monies staked in one particular pool, say the Treble Chance, had tax and company overheads deducted and whatever was left was divided up amongst any winners. I can’t remember exactly what the divi was but it were something like 60% for the first prize divided up amongst the first prize winners, 20% for the second, 10% for the third, 6% for the fourth and 4% for the fifth prize.

What the punter had to do were select 8 matches out of the full list of English matches and some Scottish matches that would end in a draw. You got 3 points for a match ending in a draw, 2 for an away win and 1 for a home win. This was later changed to 3 points for a score draw, 2 points for a no score draw, 1½ points for an away win and 1 point for a home win. You added up the points that your 8 selections gained and if you had 24 points you got the first prize or a share of the first prize if there was more than one winner. 23 points for second prize, 22 for 3rd, 21 for 4th and 20 for 5th. At one time there was a maximum of £75,000 for the top prize. Each line of selections cost 1 penny and you could have as many lines as you wanted or the space allowed. Obviously the space was limited so that’s when perms and plans were introduced. With a perm (short for permutation) you would select more than 8 matches and perm any 8 from those selected. The number of lines for a perm of any 8 from 12 was:
12z11x10x9x8x7x6x5 all divided by 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (19,958,400/40,320) = 495 lines.

With 55 matches to choose from you could perm any 8 from 55. That is 55x54x53x52x51x50x49x48 all divided by 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (49,092,275,232,000/40,320) = 9,917,633,600 lines. At 1 penny a line, that would cost £41,323,473 – 6 shillings and 8 pence.

There was a fixed formula to calculate a perm. Any 3 from 10 would be 10x9x8 divided by 3x2x1. Any 5 from 10 would be 10x9x8x7x6 divided by 5x4x3x2x1.

Other pools companies like Zetters and Shermans would charge fractions of a penny per line. One was as little as one twenty fifth of a penny per line.

There was a 3 Draws pool, the 4 Aways pool and 10 Results pool. There was also an ‘Easy Six’ pool where six matches were listed and you had to forecast the result and one for 12 matches in terms of home win, away win or draw and not the actual score.

The total minimum stake on the whole coupon was one shilling. There was no maximum.

[steeljack]

thanks Jambutty , best I ever could do was try the "8 from 10" with a 2 bob bet , looking back it must have been quite an operation to hand check each coupon , unless you were the lucky one who sent a claim in by a telegram .......wonder where they sent the telegrams from , the post offices would be shut by then (would they not ? 5 pm on a Saturaday afternoon ) .

jumping sideways , I suppose the Vernons girls were the first "spice girls" according to this wiki link they are the longest surviving girl group (hard to imagine)..The Vernons Girls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,