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Here Are Next Week's Lottery Numbers

Some readers may have clicked on the above title hoping to be given six numbers that would change their lives. I hope to provide these numbers, but they won't be the lucky numbers that you were expecting!

Obviously, there is absolutely no way that I can foretell which six balls will be drawn in any future Lotto draw. Anyway, what would be the point? If, by some mystical ritual, I did reveal the numbers, everyone reading this article would rush out and buy a ticket. Thus, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people would win first prize and the Jackpot payouts would be tiny! And if anyone could accurately predict future results, most people would stop playing, because the element of random chance would be gone – there'd be no more "It could be you!".

What fascinates me about the Lottery and similar games of change is the huge gap between the cold logic behind the game and the wild hopes that people attach to it. Here are six numbers that I think sum up the Lottery perfectly.

In a typical week for the National Lottery, across all draws, scratchcards and other games:

• Seven out of ten adults will buy Lottery tickets or scratchcards.
• Together, they will spend £90 million on these games.
• £25 million of this goes to good causes (28% of ticket sales).
• £45 million is returned in prizes (up to half of ticket sales).
• Upwards of £10 million goes to "match 6" Lotto Jackpot winners (52% of the prize fund).
• Around three millionaires will be created.

So, we gamble about £90 million, but get back no more than £45 million. In other words, we lose £45 million a week, which is shared between:

• Good causes: 28% (£25.2m per week)
• Duty paid to the government: 12% (£10.8m)
• Retailer commission: 5% (£4.5m)
• Operating costs: 4.5% (£4m)
• Profit: 0.5% (£0.5m)

Hence, year in, year out, there are a few big winners from the Lottery:

• The 160 or so millionaires that it creates each year.
• Good causes, which benefit to the tune of £1.3 billion.
• The Treasury, which collects over half a billion in "stealthy" tax revenue.
• The retailers, which share about £234m in extra revenue.
• The operators, which take £211m towards their running costs, plus a guaranteed profit of around £23m.

The argument that playing the Lottery benefits good causes isn't a strong enough reason for losing about 75p in every pound that you stake. Indeed, much of this money replaces funds that should otherwise have come from government spending. If being charitable is your goal, it'd be far more effective to make a Gift Aid donation, where the taxman bumps up every pound you donate to £1.28.

The occasional flutter on the National Lottery does no real harm to individuals but, as with all gambling, it damages our long-term financial future. By taking from the many and giving to a few randomly selected individuals, it redistributes wealth regardless of merit. What's more, the more you play, the more you lose: £5 every Wednesday and Saturday adds up to £520 a year, which is a lot to splurge.

Here's one easy way to harness the Lottery for your benefit. Every time that you spend a pound on a ticket or scratchcard, put the same amount into a high-interest savings account. Saving £10 a week in an account that pays, say, 4% a year after tax would produce a lump sum of about £530 by the end of a year.

Of course, with the Lottery, you could have anything from zero pounds to several Jackpots! However, I suspect that you'd have to be unusually lucky to have more than, say, £150 returned by the Lottery over the course of the year.

Whether you choose to play the Lottery is largely down to your personality. Which would you rather have – a guaranteed way to make money, or a mega-long-odds chance of a decent win? Personally, I stopped playing the Lottery many years ago and prefer to patiently invest my money in the stock market for long-term gain. What you do is entirely your choice.

More: You can find a great savings account here | A great investment for stock-market beginners.