National Lottery Price Rise

[beejay1124]

The price of a national lottery ticket doubles to £2 this Saturday-will you still be doing it (if you currently do it) ?

[Ratty2E]

They are probably counting on the people who always use the same numbers to be too scared to stop. I'm glad that I always just used random numbers so I just do it occasionally.

[davetuc]

Don't get the argument about it not going up for 20 years, so maybe it's about time. Surely the prizes are based on the amount of money raised by ticket sales? Seems like a lot of people will stop doing it, so, as an example, instead of a million people paying one pound, they'll get 500,00 paying 2 pounds???? Have a look at the prize breakdown. Some prizes will actually be less!

[julia-mag]

I have just invested on line as a one-off chance.

[Eve]

I only get one every now and again so will probably still do that. I don't do Euro Millions very often as it's more expensive but I guess it has been unchanged for such a long time, remember being at school when it came in and had just turned old enough to buy one.

[boxtops]

I have a standing order for two lines Lotto - at £4 a go now, I need to think about this. Perhaps I'll stay in a short while and see how it goes.

[Gromit]

The Health Lottery is run by Richard Desmond, owner of Television X and Red Hot TV, porn channels on Freeview.

[horseshoes]

We're going to have a rethink about it too. OH and I have a line each on a Wednesday and a Saturday, and we do euro millions AND thunder ball. We've done the same lotto numbers since day one so a bit scary giving them up. We'll probably give up the Wednesday ones I should think. I wasn't too happy about starting the Wednesday one in the first place!

[factor-fiction]

>Surely the prizes are based on the amount of money raised by ticket sales .

Yes. According to Wikipedia:

Of all money spent on National Lottery games, 50% goes to the prize fund, 28% to 'good causes' as set out by Parliament (though some of this is considered by some to be a stealth tax[2] levied to support the Big Lottery Fund, a fund constituted to support public spending[3]), 12% to the UK Government as duty, 5% to retailers as commission, and a total of 5% to operator Camelot, with 4.5% to cover operating costs and 0.5% as profit.[4] Lottery tickets and scratch cards may be bought only by people of at least 16 years of age.

So if the receipts double the prize fund should double, although that doesn't mean each prize will double.

My guess is receipts (and therefore the prize fund) will increase by no more than 20%

[Hawko1]

I dont play the National Lottery anymore, it threw away its best selling point, which is that it was affordable. Why pay the same price for a National lottery ticket when you can buy a EuroMillions ticket which has way bigger jackpots? Or switch over the Health Lottery to keep playing for £1. If you want better odds than play the Irish Lottery. Camelot really made a big mistake and it seems like a lot of UK lottery players have voted with their wallets - they've seen their profits drop for the first time since they launched in 1994. The Health Lottery, EuroMillions and international lottery providers like https://www.lottoland.co.uk/uklotto have seen their profits rising.