It could be you, but it probably won’t be. The chances of winning tonight’s Lotto, ditching the job and splurging on a Caribbean holiday are more remote than ever.
For the first time, players will choose from a panel of 47 numbers instead of 45, pushing the odds of scooping the jackpot out to nearly 11 million to one.
According to a 2006 analysis by Harvard's David Ropeik, one of world's foremost experts on risk, the odds of dying in an aircraft crash are equivalent.
Back in 1987, when the National Lottery was first established, the odds of selecting the correct combination, albeit from a 36-number panel, was 1.9 million to one.
The long odds are unlikely to deter the many thousands of Irish people who play religiously each week, however.
Psychologists call it the sweet spot of risk-taking – small financial outlays, too minuscule to be viewed as a risk.
It’s the business model that drives modern, mass-participation lotteries and generates billions of euro for operators each year.
The companies behind these businesses want you to view their product as just another benign grocery item, equivalent to a loaf of bread.
The National Lottery's revamped format is part of a series of changes being brought in by the new private operator, Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI), which will also see the price of a minimum two-line play rise from €3 to €4.
The changes, which will also include larger payouts for smaller prizes, are designed to generate bigger jackpots.
Jackpot data
National Lottery data shows sales can jump by as much as 80 per cent when jackpots hit €10 million, with more and more players being dragged in as the prize pot grows.
The operator’s honeymoon in charge – it took over last November – hasn’t exactly gone to plan.
The switch to a new technology platform has resulted in a series of technical blunders and outages, the worst of which resulted in a cancelled draw back in February.
This has damaged its reputation and led to renewed grumblings about the Government’s decision to privatise it in the first place.
However, the proof of the privatisation pudding will be best judged on how much money is generated for good causes and how much profit the operator makes.
PLI, obviously, needs to make a return on its €405 million investment, but we’ve no way of knowing if that was a good outcome for the State until we see the profit margin it generates.
