Easy money?

If you walk past a slot machine do you put on some money just to see if you, just this time, can win the big jackpot? The flashing lights tell you, you are only one coin away from the big payout. Or are you one of those people who play the lottery every week for that insignificant chance of winning the first price? A comforting thought might be that you are not alone.

In 2005 each Norwegian bet on average 1400 € in the hopes of getting to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. One thousand four hundred euros. Each. Not included in this number is the around 500m € spent on unregulated internet gambling that year. And since I know for a fact that I spent significantly less than that in 2005, someone must have a serious problem.

A survey from 2002 found that around 49 000 people between the age of 15 and 79 had a serious gambling problem. And since then the amount of money involved have increased by 25 %. A new survey, that is well underway, is bound to find that the number of people with a problem has increased.

One of the most popular lotteries (if not the most addictive as it is a weekly game) is the Norwegian Lotto. It’s your basic ‘pick 7 numbers out of a pot of 34’ lottery, and if you get them all correct you win the first price. The principle of it all is very easy to follow. The hard part is actually winning anything. And as anyone who have ever put some money into a lottery like this knows; winning isn’t enough – it’s the first price that really counts.

One in five million.

That’s the chance of winning the first price on any given set of numbers. One in five million. So why do people insist on throwing money into the lottery? It’s because every week another lucky sod gets half a million after putting in five euros in the pot! Every week that one in five million chance happens to someone. Sooner or later it’s bound to happen to me, right? Right?