Tuesday, 6 December 2011

The Billion Pound Lottery

The current situation of the lottery is that generally jackpots are around 2 million pounds per winner (as per http://plus.maths.org/content/uk-national-lottery-guide-beginners ). So every year on average 52 people get a £2 million windfall.

How does this benefit society? These winners are likely to buy a nice house and a nice car. (http://www.uklotterydraw.com/lottery-winners/how-do-lottery-winners-spend-their-money )

This rewards estate agents and car dealers, two of the most hated professions in the UK.

Instead, what if the European / US lottery worked like a giant raffle. Tickets are issued until there is a prize fund of £1 billion. This then goes to one ticket holder.

The winner would of course buy a very nice house, an awesome car, and maybe a yacht.

They would then probably have 990 million left. This is where it gets interesting. This is such a huge weight of money that gilt guilt would get the better of them.

They would naturally think about what that money could buy. You could personally pay up the international debt of Belize or Eritrea. You could force-buy every illegal handgun in America and turn them into a peace-loving Eiffel tower replica. You could donate 7900 Lamborghinis to the post office so they can deliver junk mail in style.

Whatever they choose, it is likely to be more beneficial to society to give one random person a massive amount of money than for thousands to have just a huge amount of money.

Related Links:

How to win the Lottery

A Decade of Debt

A Lamborghini

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