“What’s the Point in being Rich / If You Can’t Think What to Do With It?”

I’m sure that “bosses” at Camelot must be rubbing their hands with glee at the “lottery fever” (copyright all tabloid newspapers) that has been “gripping the nation” recently.

Now, I know that this is all essentially a tax on those with a shaky grasp on the concept of probability (Londonist tells me that the odds on a single ticket winning the jackpot in the EuroMillions draw–76 million to 1–are roughly the same as playing a single number on a roulette wheel five times the size of the M25), but that still hasn’t stopped me from buying a couple of tickets for this week’s draw. [Well, why would you want to not win only £5 million, when you can not win £125 million instead?]

I’ve also opted in to our work syndicate, although that is more because, as unlikely as it is, I wouldn’t want to be the only person in the company who has to come in to work on Monday. 3 people have apparently opted to take this chance, but that does mean that any winnings we do get will be split between 51 people. That’d be fine if we were to win the top prize (if we’re the only ticket holders to do so, that’d be a cool £2.5 million each), but given that the prize distribution in this particular competition is so heavily skewed towards the jackpot, it’s far more likely that we could “win” one of the minor prizes but get back less than our collective initial stake. Hmm. Looks we’ll probably all be back in the office on Monday after all, won’t we?