If You Won $6.53 in the Lottery, What Would You Do With It?

I don't think $6.53 would buy you much.....

I'd had more difficulties if I won that (though in ££) with a Million after it!

I thought I had once, on the National Lottery; maybe a million not $6, 530, 000; as I carefully tested the pink slip against the numbers in a newspaper.

Three (the least) matched - not bad, a tenner. Well, all right £9 because the stake was £1.

Four - ooh, maybe £40-50. I did win that, once.

Five... Cor! Some tens or even a few hundreds, of thousand pounds.

Six.... I felt a bit faint, steadied myself, reviewed the matches, decided I'd take the ticket to the newsagents and ask them to verify it very discreetly.

Then I realised I was examining not my ticket, but a results slip for the previous week. Nowt for it but to pack my sandwiches and go to work as usual.

....

Some years ago now, the Canadian teachers' union that owns Britain's National Lottery (why the Hell did they not find or set up a British administrator so at least keeping the trading-profits in the country?) doubled the stake from £1 to £2. It also multiplied by 50 the already enormous odds against winning anything by upping it from 6-from-49 numbers, to 6-from-50. I have bought barely any tickets since.

(I forget the formula, but bets like these work on factorials, so the odds climb very steeply indeed.)