5 NOVEMBER 1994, Page 9

DO YOU SINCERELY WANT TO BE RICH?

If you do, then taking part in the National Lottery is one

of the worst ways to go about it, says Alasdair Palmer,

who interviews some millionaire gamblers

THE MOST remarkable thing about the National Lottery is not the potentially huge prizes or the amount that will be quietly pocketed by the Treasury. It is not even the identity of the television presenters who will announce the winning numbers. No, the most striking thing about the National Lottery is that it represents a transparently bad bet for anyone who buys a ticket. The lottery is a game of pure chance. There is nothing you can do to influence the outcome. The odds of winning are 14 million to one. It costs a pound to Play, and the maximum pay-out is unlikely ever to be more than £7 million (most of the time, it will be considerably less: £2 mil- lion is the most frequently quoted figure). You do not have to be a mathematical genius to work out that you are over- whelmingly likely to lose money if you play. The more money you spend, the more you are likely to lose. To be certain of win- ning a share of the £7-mil- lion jackpot, you would have to buy all the tickets — which would cost you £14 million. There will be plenty of smaller prizes, but the same ratio applies: anyone who plays regularly can expect to spend at least twice as much on tickets as he wins in prizes. Contrast boring, unglamorous Premium Bonds, where you never lose your money and the odds of winning a prize between £50 and £1 million are 15,000 to one. As a result, people who buy Premium Bonds can expect an average return of about 5 per cent, tax free per year on their investment — unlike people who buy Lottery tickets, most of whom will end up with nothing. In spite of all that, Camelot, the lottery's organisers, are confident that as many as 80 per cent of the adult UK population will buy tickets, and one in three adults will buy tickets every week. According to Camelot's market research, that figure increases when their sales executives explain how the lot- tery works — a fact which is testimony to the persuasive power of said sales execu- tives, if not their honesty, or the stupidity of the rest of us.

In Ireland and Spain, countries which have had lotteries for several years, people spend thousands of pounds (or their equiv- alent) a year on tickets. Countless people make themselves destitute in the course of an utterly predictable sequence of failures to win.

Unless you like wasting money, purchas- ing a lottery ticket is an irrational thing to do. The logic demonstrating that fact is unanswerable and not difficult to under- stand. So why will 30 million Britons buy tickets?

The simple answer is that we are all idiots. Unsurprisingly, that is not an answer which Camelot's executives are prepared to accept. As one of them explained to me, people will play because they all think they might win. 'And each one of them might,' he continued, echoing the slogan for Camelot's advertising: 'It might be you'. Indeed it might — although your chances of being hit by a meteorite, struck by light- ning, finding buried treasure, or cleaning up on the stock market are all significantly higher. 'OK, but look at it this way,' the man from Camelot countered, effortlessly launching into his sales patter. 'If you don't play, you won't win. If you do, you might win a fortune. That's enough to show it's worth buying tickets!' It isn't, but I felt myself wavering. There is some- thing about the possibility of becoming a millionaire as a result of having spent only a pound which blots out all rational calculations. Instant riches are every- one's dream, the panacea for every problem and the key to every pleasure. Everyone knows that money buys happiness. (And that, correspondingly, the only problem with hap- piness is that it can't buy money.) 'It won't change my life' are the words most frequently uttered by pools winners when they receive a million-pound cheque. But we all know that it will, because we all fantasise about changing our own lives as a result of a lottery windfall. What's the point of playing if win- ning doesn't radically change your life for the better?

It comes as some surprise, then, to dis- cover that most winners do not, in fact, change the way they live. When they said `It won't change my life', they meant it.

Peter Collet, the cesspit cleaner from Eve- sham in Worcester who won half a million on the pools and then went straight back to his job, getting up at six in the morning to clean sewers and cesspits with his suction lorry (several years later, he is still doing it, and from the same council house). Most winners behave in a similar way. They do not quit their old jobs, do not leave their old neighbourhood, and do not splurge extravagantly.

The fantasies of many pools winners are deeply disappointing. Some imagine a gross paradise of immortal drunkenness: when John Shakeshaft, for instance, won £100,000, what he said he most wanted to do was to drink it. Others are less indul- gent, though just as prosaic. When Alice Smith won over a million, her husband's spending plans were straightforward. 'I'm going to buy a new fishing rod and two snooker cues.' After that, his mind went blank.

Peter Cregeen, a City stockbroker who advises pools winners on what to do with their money, confirms that 'most people can't imagine much beyond the kind of life they are used to. They also don't want to cut their links with their friends. You can't drive to the local pub in a Rolls- Royce, and most don't want to own too flashy a car.' Maintaining friendships is one of the things winners are most eager to do, but it is also one of the hardest things to accom- plish. Sudden wealth can curdle friendship, as the rough equality on which friendship depends is replaced by envy or the relation- ship of debtor and creditor.

One way of keeping old friends is to stay in the same job. It doesn't always work. Some decide they want to leave in order to start their own business. 'People say they've always wanted to own a pub or a sweet- shop,' explains Mr Cregeen. 'I have to explain it's the worst thing they can do. It's bloody hard work, and a sure way to lose money.' George Dawes, for instance, won over £750,000 in 1983. He bought a 16th- century mansion which he decided to con- vert into a pub. He also bought race-horses and stables. A decade later, he had lost most of his money. The bank had repos- sessed the mansion, and the stables and horses had all been sold. Today he says he feels 'sick, definitely', at what happened.

Still, he didn't regret winning. Vivian Nicholson, the woman who swapped grind- ing poverty in Yorkshire for a luxurious life of baths in champagne following her huge pools win in the Sixties, is the only big win- ner in Britain on record as saying she wished she had never filled in the form. The impact of a big win is much greater on the poor, and, generally, they find it harder to deal with. But despite the common belief that all big winners are from the low- est income groups, poor people win less often than rich ones do. The reason is straightforward. Whilst the poor spend a disproportionate amount of their income on lotteries, pools and other big-prize gam- bles — far more, relatively, than the rich they cannot afford to buy as many tickets. As a result, they do not win as frequently. According to a survey of 576 lottery win- ners in the United States, the prizes cluster around people with higher than average incomes.

But that is not a statistic to which Camelot's marketing men will be drawing attention. Who wants to know about a rich person winning yet more money? It negates the whole point of the lottery, which is to allow poor people the opportunity to enjoy wealth they are incapable of earning in the competitive market-place. That's the dream the lottery is selling. It can't survive the truth that the lottery is just like every- thing else: the richer you are, the better you'll be able to do.

The publicity, therefore, focuses on the rare cases where the winners actually are impoverished people who spend like mad when they win. That focus is shared by newspapers and television, and it has creat- ed the misleading impression that the Vivian Nicholson-type is the norm. Take Billy Comer, a genial, bespectacled Irish- man from the run-down village of Glena- maddy in Galway, Ireland. Six months ago, Mr Corner was a hard-working customs officer, supporting a wife and four children. Then in June he won over a million pounds in the Irish lottery. As the Sun newspaper lip-smackingly reported, he now lives in a specially constructed four-bedroomed house, with a jacuzzi, a snooker room, four cars and 36-acre farm.

What was not reported in the Sun, how- ever, is that Mr Corner bought the house, the jacuzzi, the snooker table, the cars and the farm before he won the lottery. Since his windfall, the only noticeable luxury he has added is a portable telephone. He is still working as a customs officer, driving three hours every Monday morning to Wexford, and spending the week at work away from home. 'I haven't decided to give up the job yet,' he told me. 'I'd like to find something nearer home. But I'm not ready to retire.'

Billy Comer is a much more representa- tive winner than Vivian Nicholson. The biggest difference instant wealth has made to his family is instant popularity. Asked what had changed since her father won, Tracey Comer, Billy's nine-year-old daugh- ter, said, 'All the other children want to play with me now.' Billy has certainly found that everyone is 'very friendly. The prob- lem is, they all expect me to buy them a drink, at least one drink, usually a few more than one. I don't mind, but you'd be surprised how it adds up.' He was enor- mously grateful when I paid for dinner. `You can't be serious!' he exclaimed. No one's bought me anything since I won. I think I've forgotten what it's like.' When we met, Mr Comer was watching his son play Gaelic football in the local team. He was anxiously eyeing the crowd, which was substantial. 'They'll all want a drink off inc. It's going to be expensive.' Mr Corner's willingness to 'spread his money around', as they say in his village, has ensured that almost everyone likes him. Even so, his newfound wealth has generat- ed a good deal of bitterness. He and his wife both come from very large families— eight brothers and sisters on his side, nine_ on hers. 'I've already given away £100,00n to them,' he sighed, 'and, though most are delighted and very happy with their share, one or two on my side are furious.' The sadness of discovering that, for some mem- bers of his family, `no matter how now you give, it's not enough', is currently the only cloud on Mr Comer's otherwise rosy horizon. A different fate awaits those who win and are not willing to share it with anyone else. Maura Burke won £3 million in the. Irish lottery on 8 August 1993. There was a spontaneous party in the Gaelic-speaking village of Lettermore (population: 450, and shrinking) as the villagers celebrated her good fortune, in which they expected to share. Mrs Burke's husband died within a month. She had no children. Expectations rose: since she had no dependents, the vil- lagers thought she would distribute some of her winnings to them. 'But do you know what?' said one outraged villager in the Lettermore post office to me. 'We've not seen a penny of it!' Mrs Burke is building an enormous house for herself just outside Lettermore. The construction site is a con- stant reminder to the villagers of what they consider to be her meanness. She has received death-threats and may never occu- py the house. She is now living in London. But the most spectacular example of the way in which a sudden lottery win can destroy relationships occurred in Spain. A syndicate made up of inhabitants from the town of Granollers near the Costa Brava won £50 million in 1980. The people of Granollers thought their problems were over for ever — no more worries about money, no more boring jobs, just perma- nent financial security. But, almost instan- taneously, disputes erupted about how to distribute the money. Children, parents, brothers and sisters fought each other over shares. There was a sudden increase in rob- beries. Shops were looted. One woman's child was kidnapped and held to ransom by her neighbour. When the mother failed to Pay up, the neighbour strangled the infant. Horror stories of that kind are not going to put anyone off playing the lottery although it may discourage one or two from joining a syndicate. No one seriously believes that they will be worse off if they Win, for the good reason that it isn't true. With a few exceptions, winners feel happier and more secure after they have the money. 'But you shouldn't get the wrong impression,' Peter Cregeen told me. 'One million sounds a lot, but it isn't. It repre- sents an income of about £50,000 a year. A lot of families have that now, and they don't feel rich.' But then they don't have a million pounds in the bank. The National Lottery will exploit our seemingly limitless capacity for greed and stupidity. Indeed, it will depend on it. Camelot's dangling of millions of pounds in Prize money will very successfully warp our judgment. It will be irrational to play, but everyone will. Every argument against play- ing is silenced when people see a winner receiving his cheque. It can't have been irrational for him to buy that ticket, one thinks, he's just won! The thought is logi- cally valueless — there are up to 30 million others who have just lost — but strangely Convening. So despite the fact that I know it will an irrational waste of money, I think I will be joining the idiots and playing. It's only a quid a go, and I could win a million.