# I pit the UK National Lottery. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 11, 2004, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418 "2004-08-11T20:50:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/41 "2004-08-12T17:07:25Z")
Isn’t retroactive legislation ‘unconstitutional’ (or something like that)? I know here you just _can’t_ do that. ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/42 "2004-08-12T17:13:27Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > Isn’t retroactive legislation ‘unconstitutional’ (or something like that)? I know here you just _can’t_ do that. Yes, but think about the children! (or in this case, rape victims) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/43 "2004-08-12T17:22:55Z")
I think the money should go to the victims. That asshole doesn’t deserve it. ---
**Author:** ![Ryle\_Dup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Ryle\_Dup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryle_Dup)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/44 "2004-08-12T17:40:01Z")
> [@AngelicGemma](#): > > I think the money should go to the victims. That asshole doesn’t deserve it. So why don’t we just murder anyone who commits a crime like that, I mean, they don’t deserve to have a chance at life. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/45 "2004-08-12T17:45:56Z")
Deserve? Deserve has nothing to do with it. It’s the lottery! Not the Nobel Prize for Not Being a Rapist. If you give out money based on sheer chance, then some complete assholes are, now and again, going to win it. It’s his money, and he got it fair and square. He deserves his money as much as any other lottery winner does (and most of them, I daresay, while not monsters of this sort, aren’t the pillars of virtue you’d have to be to “deserve” this kind of reward). I’m ambivalent on the justice of suing a newly rich person for crimes committed and punished for long ago. If he hadn’t won the lottery, the victims would have to be content with his normal sentence, and it’s not like this situation is at all common. OTOH, I’m sure both hearing about his release and his fortune have repopened some wounds. I’m with **sinical brit**. It’s so unlikely to happen again that I’d have no problem letting convicts waste cash on the lottery. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/46 "2004-08-13T13:26:45Z")
For the more, shall we say _Old Testament_ people here, consider this: Prior to winning the money this sex-pest was completely anonymous and about to end his jail time, after which he would have got on with his miserable life in some grotty council flat, but he would have been genuinely free. Now he is a marked man. The tabloids will track him down and publicise his whereabouts wherever he goes (If he’s released on licence he can’t go abroad). This will shortly followed by packs of chavs, with their robber’s-dog wives and feral brats, demanding “nonces out”, chasing him from pillar to post, after attacking all the paediatricians of course. He may rue the day he came into money. Kharmic really. Isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/47 "2004-08-13T15:37:08Z")
> [@owlstretchingtime](#): > > He may rue the day he came into money. True. He really should have kept his mouth shut about it, and you can be sure that the Lottery would have done everything possible to help keep it quiet too. They certainly don’t want this kind of publicity. Guess it shows he’s not only a criminal, but stupid too. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/48 "2004-08-13T17:55:08Z")
> [@Ryle Dup](#): > > So why don’t we just murder anyone who commits a crime like that, I mean, they don’t deserve to have a chance at life. :rolleyes: I’m against the death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/49 "2004-08-13T21:03:01Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > Can convicted felons play the Lottery in the US? As far as I’m know, the only requirement to play the lottery in the U.S is to be at least 18 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lodoen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b3f665/32.png) [@Jeff\_Lodoen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lodoen)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/50 "2004-08-14T04:11:58Z")
What’s the tax on 7,000,000 pounds? ---
**Author:** ![legion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@legion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legion)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/51 "2004-08-14T10:18:03Z")
Lottery wins are tax free in the UK. Of course, you’ll pay tax on any interest the dosh earns. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/52 "2004-08-14T15:44:12Z")
IANAB (I am not a Brit), but in the UK and most civilized nations, tax is levied on the wager, not on the winnings. That is to say the tax is already paid. Would but that the US would adopt this scheme! ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/53 "2004-08-14T20:54:16Z")
Geezer bought his ticket and won, that’s all there is to it. I don’t buy lottery tickets anyway, the mugs who do can moan all they like about this, to me it just smack of jealousy along the lines of… ‘I can’t afford to gamble and my life is really hard so it must be unfair that this person has won and he is an unpleasant person who has done some very unpleasant things’ As has been pointed out, several others have won the lottery, and some have been convicted of crimes and jailed since winning, or moved into ‘nice’ areas where they ‘don’t want people like that living in the neighborhood’(I’m thinking specifically of one Mr Carrol here) The lottery is amoral, the odds of winning have absoltely nothing to do with how deserving someone happens to be, its just basic probability and luck. Perhaps the most offensive thing about the lottery is what the money set aside for ‘good causes’ is spent on. I, personally, do not see the National Opera as being a charitable good cause, and yet this organisation recieved around £64millions, and the reality is that opera in teh UK is generally percieved of as being elitist entertainment for the already wealthy, why then subsidise their seats in the house ? . I’m sure someone will try to rebut this claim about elitist opera, but fact remains that if you really wanted to spread the money around in a way that would reach most people then it could be far better spent on community halls, or restoration of our heritage, or so many other things. True enough there is plenty of good work done by the lottery fund, but examine th elist of benfactees and you soon begin to wonder about ‘charitable status’ and ‘good causes’. Actually, the further down the social pile you go, the higher the proportion of income is spent on gambling so its not all that surprising that offenders win the lottery regularly. I would not be at all surprised to imagine this as a way of laundering illegal money, all the local drugs baron needs to do is to purchase winning tickets from punters at a premium, and hey presto! the money is clean. **Owlstretchingtime** You mention rule 43, I assume you have some familiarity of segregation rules, but this has been significantly amended and it is now rule 45(or rule 49 when applied to young offenders) ---
**Author:** ![InvidiousCourgette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/54 "2004-08-14T21:23:17Z")
what \*\*casdave \*\* said ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418/55 "2004-08-16T09:46:49Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > **Owlstretchingtime** > > You mention rule 43, I assume you have some familiarity of segregation rules, but this has been significantly amended and it is now rule 45(or rule 49 when applied to young offenders) Thankfully my interest in such matters has always been at arms-length. Can I assume that it’s still not a nice place to be? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-uk-national-lottery/259418.md?page=2)