I could be £4.1 million richer this evening and if that fails the very specific sum of £376,747.20 by 6.20pm tomorrow. I’d take either to be honest. For 2020, I’ve decided to reinstate my weekly flutters on the National Lottery and my Premier League accumulator.
It was scarily easy to pay the necessary cash – £12! – into my National Lottery and SkyBet accounts and I’ve chosen my numbers, the same family birthday ones I always use, and picked the results of the weekend’s 10 premiership games.
Despite being the son of one the world’s few successful gamblers – about 50 years ago Mr Jones Senior won a tidy sum on a horse-racing accumulator bet – I’ve inherited none of his luck or skill.
How difficult can it be to get 10 results right, I ask myself. One of the reasons my £10 bet on the Premier League could win so much – £376 million – is that I’m betting that Liverpool will lose at home tomorrow. Yes world champions Liverpool who have just started the season unbeaten with the highest points total of any European team ever.
I just think it’s time for them to lose and they’re playing huge rivals Man United whose form is picking up. The bookmakers disagree, of course, and are giving me the very long odds of 8 to 1 against. Trouble is when I have a feeling like this I just can’t resist going with it and end up losing.
Of course, it’ll be a major miracle if the bet gets that far. The first match is taking place as I write this – it’s still 0-0 and I’ve got Watford to win. That’s what happens most weeks I place my bet thinking it’ll add some extra excitement to watching the results come in but it’s usually all over before the kick-off time for most of Saturday’s games.
If all else fails there’ll be Lotto. It’s a rollover today so more to win than usual. It costs just £2 to place the bet and I can spend a few moments imagining what I’d do with that life changing amount of money. For me, as I’ve already virtually given up work, that would be a property on the Med and cash to help my kids get on the property ladder.
The other attraction of the National Lottery is the charity side of it. They give about 25% of the money to “good causes” which has helped us win sackfuls of Olympic medals amongst a great many other worthy projects.
Over its lifetime it has raised over £40 billion with more than 565,000 individual awards made across the UK – the equivalent of around 200 lottery grants in every UK postcode district.
First result in, Watford didn’t win. Have just lost £376,747.20!