Christmas is upon us and as usual the usual lazy Christmas shoppers look at the easy way out, gifting either Lotto tickets or Scratch tickets to their friends or family. With Lotto tickets most people realise that a certain amount is taken out of each dollar invested before the rest goes into a pool to be distributed between the few who win something worthwhile while minor division winners either get enough to buy a cup of coffee and a cupcake or invest their hard earned in another ticket thus increasing the amount taken out by the agent, not to mention the lotto company and the Government.
Then there is your so-called scratch tickets. Ask the agent selling the ticket to you if he has a list of the number of prizes and their dollar value in that set of tickets and he will look at you with an expression like a stunned mullet. Ask him if the major prize has been already won in that set of tickets and he will collapse on the floor in hysterics.
The fact is they do not want the mug punter to have access to this information, because they would be horrified to the extent that they may never buy another ticket. If there ever was a war fought between an army of mug punters and an army of politicians, It would be a “no contest” The resilience of the mug punter would far outweigh the spineless politician.
Scratch tickets work the same way as poker machines, a minimum of larger prizes and a maximum of prizes that the mug punter simply reinvests.
Twenty years ago I pestered the organisers of the scratch tickets for a long time for a list of prizes in each set and finally they sent me a handwritten list of the number of prizes and the amount and I can assure you I have never purchased a ticket since.
You could give two punters a million dollars each and have one play a poker machine and the other scratch “scratch tickets”, the one on the poker machines would finish first, simply because the poker machine would gobble the million dollars faster than the poor punter could scratch tickets, but both would finish with zilch and the scratcher would probably end up with RSI.
Now we have LOTTOLAND, perhaps BLOTTOLAND would be more appropriate?
If there is anyone who knows how this mob operate, I would be pleased to hear from them.
As far as I can figure:
• They are registered as a bookmaker in the Northern Territory.
• They do not run lotteries, merely bet on the outcome of lotteries.
• They are registered as a company in the tax haven of Gibraltar, meaning no taxes are paid in Australia “unlike Australian lotteries where supposedly tax would be invested in Australia.”
• They claim that they take out insurance to cover any big prizes won.
• Big money is being offered on TV with double jackpots and bonuses being offered that could be better spent advising exactly how they operate.
• Let the buyer beware, you are supplying your credit card details to the “unknown”
• On reviews on the Internet there have been instances of unauthorized credit card transactions.
Smells awfully like a scam to me, but if anyone can convince me otherwise, I would be pleased to hear from them, meanwhile the ACCC should be pouring resources into investigating this mob and make the public aware of how they operate.
Australia follows the USA like a shadow in most things and we should be banning on-line gambling as it is a haven for those out to have you depart from your hard earned. Then you would need politicians with a backbone to do this.
