OT The lottery and apprentices

[ARW]

Apprentice swears blind his grand parents won the lottery 30 years ago (well £250,000) as he spent £10 on scratch cards this morning.

[Bob Minchin]

And it only started in 1994 .......

How time flies

[Andy Burns]

Maybe he's part foreign?

[Jabba]

ARW scribbled...

Irish Lottery? That's been around for well over 40 years. IIRC the tickets used to sold under the counter in some shops.

[R D S]

[harryagain]

Ah. One of the voluntary taxpayers?

[Andrew Gabriel]

The Pools?

[Nightjar]

That would be my guess. Not many people seem to have heard of them these days, although they are still going.

[Unbeliever]

I would have thought that he has his dates wrong as I can remember working with a bloke who's wife had also won ?250,000 on the lottery in 1996 and IIRC, that was about two years after the lottery started.

[dennis]

1985/1986 IIRC

[Adrian]

Definitely around '94 - 20yrs ago, so - to apprentice - "before I was born"... I was working with a bloke whose father was on a lot of the progs when it first got started, as a "professional lottery winner". He sorted us a "guaranteed" scheme. We paid a fuckload in, and got about 20p out. I've very rarely bought any tickets since. Mind you, one of the few times I did, I got four numbers and won £90.

[Jabba]

Dennis@home scribbled...

Looked it up - it was the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake which dates back to pre war.

Dunno how big the prizes were.

[Brian Gaff]

Was it going that long ago? Doesn't time fly.

Does he not realise the actual odds these days? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I believe the Spanish one is run by the local blind association or used to be at any rate. Brian

[Andrew Gabriel]

When I was working for GEC in the Elstree Way building just off the A1 (recently demolished), another GEC company (GEC Traffic Automation?) was just next to us - indeed I used to go bowling with some of them. They had a Pools syndicate, and won. Not sure what sum they won, but it was enough for several of them to stick up two fingers to their management and walk out of their jobs. (Sadly, it was also the end of our bowls team.)

[Chris J Dixon]

Whilst casually browsing the shared drive, back when I was working, I found a file entitled "Escape Plan". It was a shop floor departmental lottery syndicate agreement, and one clause stated that, for any win more than a specified amount, they were all to resign.

Chris

[damduck-egg]

When the lottery started such syndicates were very common and ISTR that some getting insurance against such an event was advised for businesses. Even money can't actually make anything though so a small business making something unusual which requires particular skills in the workforce could be brought to its knees. The biggest losers in such a scenario and it may have happened would the odd employee who wasn't in the syndicate.

G.Harman

[Nightjar]

My parents bought their first house with a Pools win of IIRC £5,000.

[Huge]

A few jobs ago, we had a lottery syndicate. The management always used to say they hoped we never won big, because everyone would leave. IIRC, we never won anything (other than the occasional £10 which went back into the pot.)

[Jethro_uk]

I believe you can actually buy insurance against that !