Rather than simply sending players an e-mail to advise them that they’ve won a £25.00 prize (just think what dastardly cyber criminals could get up to were they to intercept an e-mail telling you that you’ve got that sort of dosh on its way into your bank account…), instead the National Lottery send their players a cryptic message telling them that they have “some news” about their ticket from the previous evening’s draw, and that they are advised to sign in to their accounts as soon as they can for more information.
The first time this happened to us, I was convinced that we’d hit the jackpot. I spent hours trying to log into our account, but for some reason the page wouldn’t load. Eventually the penny dropped that the lottery is - technically - gambling, albeit gambling of an unrealistic sort, and as such the site was blocked by our parental controls, the password for which eluded me for a microcosmic eternity. Later that day, I finally managed to log in to our account to find out about our £25.00 prize. I was actually annoyed – no, incensed – that we were £25.00 better off. This preposterous, nonsensical, needlessly clandestine National Lottery notification system had left me beside myself with rage about actually receiving a minor windfall – something that’s almost universally considered to be “a good thing”. What should have been the cause for minor celebration soon became “another Cineworld”.
Since that day a few years ago, we’ve had around £200.00’s worth of £25.00 wins, the most recent of which followed last Saturday’s draw. Overall, that’s the equivalent of a week’s food and warmth for a family of four, a decent little smart TV for the bedroom, a top-tier LEGO set, a large Transformers Masterpiece or – if I were a smoker – three packets of cigarettes. And yet, every little win has felt like a digital slap in the face; it’s as if each £25.00 prize came attached to an invisible clown, whose mocking laughter drowned out anything positive that we could possibly have done with the extra cash.National Lottery, you don’t need to e-mail me the details of the account that you’re paying our £25.00 into. You don’t need to include any information that could lead to any sort of cyber security breach. All you need to say is “We’ve got some news about your ticket from the draw on [date]. Congratulations – a prize of £25.00 has been paid into your bank account.” My reaction to such an e-mail would be along the lines of - “Get in!”, “Nice one!”, or - if I were feeling even remotely Alan Partridgey - “Back of the net!” To be clear, and for the avoidance of any doubt, that would be infinitely preferable to my involuntary response to your current e-mail.
Larger prizes, such as those with four figures before the decimal point, as opposed to overall, then yeah – a login might be prudent. But please, please, please - stop making us think we’ve won the damned jackpot when in fact we’ve not even won enough to pay for a modest meal out, because no matter how many times I get your accursed e-mail with its “news”, and no matter how absurd the odds of us hitting the jackpot are, there’s still always an unwelcome little pang of excitement that follows receipt of each cruel little e-mail – a pang that quickly blossoms into unbridled fury once I login and realise that you’ve done it to us again.
