One-Off Challenge 11: Buy 40 scratchcards

ACTUAL IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER! Don't gamble with money you can't afford to lose. The house always wins in the end.

This challenge is courtesy of...

Andy Law. Thanks Andy.  I guess...

The challenge

Buy 40 scratchcards. Technically, I suppose this challenge didn't specify which scratchcards nor what I should do with them once I'd bought them (make a collage, preserve them in amber for future archaeologists, fashion them into a dress that is both stylish and a comment on our modern obsession with unearned wealth), but slightly boringly I chose to get 40 £1 National Lottery scratchcards and then scratch them off.  Still, I feel this was the spirit of the challenge.

The purchase

Slightly worryingly, the man at the Morrisons Losing-Money-and-Getting-Cancer counter didn't bat an eyelid when I asked for forty quid's worth of scratchcards.  His only concern was that he didn't have 10 of one of the types I'd asked for, so I ended up with 10 of one sort, 5 of another, 13 of another and 12 of the last one.
£40's worth of momentary excitement, providing you use the word "worth" rather loosely.

The odds

Obliviously, as a statistician, I wanted to work out what the likely outcome of this enterprise was before starting, so I took a moment to work it out.  Each card had a 1 in 4.55 to 1 in 4.59 chance of winning, depending on type.  Sadly, none of the cards listed what the average prize was, but I think it's safe to assume it's not much above the £1 stake - let's say £1.20.  We've got forty cards at 1 in 4.57(ish) odds, so that about 8.75 winning cards on average. Multiply that by 1.2 and we're looking at £10.50 back.  At a guess.  I might be low-balling the average win, in which case we'd expect a bit more.  So, somewhere around 8 to 9 wins and maybe a quarter of my investment back.

The scratching

Alex and Nash pick their cards
It being my challenge to make up as I go along, I enlisted Nash, Alex and Nae to help me scratch off the cards.  We got ten cards each. Renae was the first to win, netting a mighty £1 win on her second card, but least lucky, winning nothing else. Nash was luckiest, winning three times and also netting the highest single win (£5).  Alex and I were dead average, winning twice each, for £1 each time.  The whole endeavour took maybe 20 minutes from start to finish.

The results

The final results were: 8 wins, total prize money £12.  Pretty close to what I'd guessed at the start. So, £28 down the drain.  At least it'll go fund some good causes.
The house advantage, in visual form. (Winning tickets on the left, losing on the right.)

Challenge complete!





Will I be doing it again?

Fuck no.

Long-term updates

French words "learned" (according to the memrise app):475.
Daily photos taken? Yes.
Swordfighting learnt: None this week.
I am currently reading: Nothing. I've officially given up on the last book I was reading.
"Cheat" days on food since last week: One. Today, stuffing my face at Elginhaugh for breakfast.
"Cheat" days on exercise: All of them.
Favourite drawing: Only one drawing again this week, although I did at least sit down for a longer period of time. I'm super rusty, though. I might try and re-do some of the exercises from my learning to draw book next week to get my eye back in.
Bowl of fruit still life. It's a classic.

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