Legalised Lotteries SIR,—Apart from the fact that Mr. Phillips is
a mathematician and I am merely a linguist, I do not know that he is better qualified than I am to criticise football-pools; and when he says that "the forecasting of draws is a hundred per cent, gamble" and then gives figures which show that the percentage of.draws is actually twenty-nine, I feel justified in saying that to me the rest of the article is just as much nonsense as the " 100 per cent. gamble."
Mr. Phillips may like to spend 5s. a week on cigarettes or on going to the pictures, or on playing bridge at 5s. a hundred (none of which I do), or he may have some other way of putting his money " down the drain " (i.e., distinct from expending it on capital development). I spend my 5s. and ten minutes a week on the " pools "—and get much amusement thereby.
In any case I do not presume to tell my fellow citizens (who probably know all about the " odds ") what to do with their money; nor do I criticise the pool-promoters for making a profit any more than I would censure the patent-medicine makers or the cigarette makers for earning large profits. And if 24 million sixpences are spent weekly on the pools, that merely means that that sum circulates quickly and may enable X to buy some " gilt-edged stock," or Y to take a much needed holiday, or Z perhaps to have an extra glass of beer—all of which Mr. Phillips would do his best to stop. -.And who is Mr. Phillips to say that £5,000 should be the maximum " prize" ? Would he like " the State " to limit his royalties to one per cent., or his broadcasting fees to five shillings an hour ?—Yours truly,
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