How To Cheat The National Lottery

This past little while, I have been polishing up a three-act theatre play of mine which has not (yet) been produced.  It’s called ‘Lottery Story’.

In thinking again about the play, I found myself running over many scenarios relating to the National Lottery.  A number of these lottery-related sequences ended up in the finished play but what I’m about to describe did not.

I want to describe a way of cheating the National Lottery – well, actually it’s a way of cheating your friends via the National Lottery.  First, though, I want to be perfectly clear about something.  I’m not posting this so that you can go out and cheat your friends, truly I’m not.  Rather, I’m posting it so that you, the friends, might see whether you are being cheated or not.

I thought up this cheat myself – I have rather a horrible mind in some ways.  I'm sure others have thought of it too but I would never dream of doing it to anyone.  You have to trust me on that, it is the truth.

Anyway, here’s what I dreamed up.

Form a Syndicate of your workmates.  Every week, collect their contribution and play the National Lottery over each weekend using random numbers.  You must play the Lottery for the Syndicate.  Somebody else can look after the money part, that doesn’t matter.  Every Monday morning, you pin up the Syndicate’s lottery ticket for all to see and inspect.  It is the correct date and the amount spent on it matches the amount raised from the Syndicate.

But it is unlikely to be a winner, is it?  Because you have conned your work mates haven’t you?

Yes.  You have…

When you went to the Lottery Shop, you bought a random number ticket for the amount the Syndicate put in.

Then – what else did you do?  That’s right, you bought another random ticket for the exact same value with your own money.

It’s Friday, work is over.  You bring both tickets home and you check both of them after the weekend draw.  Most times, you won’t win anything.  But occasionally you will enjoy a small win, once in a while a slightly bigger one and, one day, well, who knows?

Whenever a ticket wins, you keep that one for yourself.  On Monday morning you bring in the losing ticket and you nail it to the wall for all to inspect.  Once in a blue moon, both tickets will win something.  Then the Syndicate will enjoy the smaller of the two prizes.  How very nice for them…

“Is that it?”  you may ask, “Forking out all that money every week for such a long shot?”

Yes, that’s it.  It’s a silly idea really.  But here’s the thing – just make sure it’s not being done to you.

As I said at the front,  I’m posting this so that you can insure that you are not being conned.  It’s terribly easy to do.  If you are a Syndicate member, make sure your ticket is on display in advance of the draw and that somebody has signed the back of it.  That’s all it takes.

I used to buy the tickets for my little work-syndicate, until I described my scenario to them.  Now I don’t.  I’ve never done this to anyone.  I’ve never assassinated anyone either but I can probably dream up a  fairly neat way of doing it.

This has been a public service posting by your own in-house devious bastard...

... me.

7 comments:

LuceWomanGetsAbout said...

Thanks Ken. Here's another nasty trick - my nephew is Sam, in the white T-shirt. Don't ever play a trick on a Dawson, they WILL get revenge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvsS5WBWNM

Susan at Stony River said...

.....so they caught you at it, eh? LOL This *would* be great in a story, depending on the characters and what happens next.

Good luck with the play!

Lindsay said...

Sounds rather stupid because MOST people will write down the numbers and check them when the drawing happens so that they can see if they have won

Jim Murdoch said...

A play about the National Lottery and not about road rage. Now that comes as a surprise. I’ve never played the Lottery. It’s not that I’m against gambling in the same way that I’m not against drinking by I don’t get excited by either. I could buy a couple of bars of chocolate with that quid and that’s guaranteed to make me feel better. Not that I buy bars of chocolate any more. I’ve been on this diet for months now and I’m allowed a treat-sized Twirl every day with my first coffee of the evening. Not a fun-sized. No. That would be like a single bite. But not a whole two-finger Twirl either. When you’re on a diet the joys of gambling are somewhat lost on one. Especially when it’s a whole nine hours and eleven minutes to Twirl time.

Reese said...

Just one addition...don't drive up in a new car the day you post the losing ticket.
We have an office lottery pool. I'm not much on playing, but feel I have to. If they win, I'll be the only one left to do all the work. I guess the bright side is that I might get a promotion out of it!

Laura Brown said...

Took me a bit to figure out how that was a cheat. I've bought a group ticket and my own ticket at the same time before. But, I usually pick a couple of numbers that are my own, not a random ticket. So I would always know which was the group ticket and which was my own. I never thought to switch them if the group ticket won anything.

Unknown said...

And this is how they do it
Each ball has an electronic bar code inside it sending out a signal
this is being received by the piston that pushes out the ball
When the ball passes the piston in the jumping about the piston will either select it or not