Cost of a Lottery ticket DOUBLES to £2 as prize for three numbers rises... but payout for getting five and a bonus ball will halve to £50,000

I haven't looked for myself Ells, but someone at work was saying the 3 numbers for a tenner goes up to £25 now.......whoopee! 

Yes. but your chance of winning is still remote, thus you'll still have spent vastly more than you'll have won!

4 numbers only paid out £14 on saturday

I resemble that now! 

I doubt their "research" tag

They've alienated millions

I won't be buying on a Wed

Well done!!

I Will be stopping as well

 . . . and that's called 'progress'

Exactly, I don't see the problem really.

I have to say that I would rather win a shared jackpot or high value prize (even a reduced value one) than nothing at all.

I used to do  the lottery and have won only small prizes and not very frequently. I have only played it on and off over the last few years. I tend to only buy one if there is a roll-over and even forget to do that sometimes.

I must have played about 7 times last year.

I got £10 for 3 on Saturday and was gobsmacked at how little is paid out for 4 or 5 numbers.

I remember getting £50 for 4 numbers once 

I got over hundred the time I got 4

I got £114 for 4 numbers years ago

I read he was gonna make it SEVEN numbers for a big win not six!!

...but paid out £70 the previous Saturday. That's the thing - the payouts can vary greatly from week to week depending on how many winners there are.

There were a lot of low numbers on Saturday, resulting in 8 jackpot winners and almost twice as many winners overall as on the previous week...

I've probably played 7 times ever And that includes the Euro Millions rollyover megabucks ones that I put on

It must be well over a year since i even won a tenner.

Total fix!!

I very rarely buy one.I do go to the bingo once a week though,the odds are much better there.

I used to LOVE bingo!  A bit too much  Had to stop myself from going.

they could easily do that without doubling the cost of a ticket surely - instead of doubling the cost and cutting 50% and 30% off two of the bigger prizes

Gamble Unaware's the new mantra then.

100%  hike is a joke for what is basically a tax.

I was listening to Jeremy Vine show today whilst driving home.

I'm sure I heard one quote by a player who said that they had been doing the lottery since it started and now they have put it up to £2 they won't be able to afford it. If what I heard was true, then that is just crazy talk, how can £1 make so much of a difference. If it does then they should NOT be playing the lottery.

They were also going on about it being a tax - utter rubbish. It's a voluntary game, it is not mandatory that you play it.

They know exactly who's playing imo.

So it's damn near a tax and I wasn't listening to Jeremy Vino.

I get the Mirror and it was trying to do an 'evil profiteers' angle on this and how hard up people will suffer. 

They won't suffer because buying a scratchcard or a lottery ticket is for the vast majority, pissing money down the drain.  The attitude to buying a lottery ticket should be, I can afford to throw this money down the drain.  If it's not money you can afford to throw down the drain, then don't buy a lottery ticket.

Lottery tickets are a discretionary purchase and the poor would be less poor if they didn't buy lottery tickets.

I'm all for criticism of this ivory towered government of tosspots and the avaricious practises of business, but if less poor people buy lottery tickets, then that's a good thing, isn't it?

I doubt it'll happen Carnelian.

They want out and Camelot know it.

I'm not quite with you Velvet.  Are you saying it is 'tax'?

IMO, all gambling should be taxed, and quite heavily, because it is a social ill. 

I may sound like a hypocrite, as I often buy a scratch card or (much less often) a lottery ticket.  However, when I do, it is money I can afford to lose.  Others can't, and do so because they want the rush or are following a desperate pipe dream.

Either way, gambling is parasitical, confidence trickery and always favours the house.  I suppose the lottery provides for good causes rather than offshore bank accounts but even so, Camelot have to make their crust and their fatcats won't work for nothing. 

People should generally be discouraged from gambling.

I've never been so far out with my chosen numbers and won so little as i have over the last year

Honestly it has to be fixed