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Lottery - Which Good Cause?

I want to choose where my money goes
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The UK National Lottery regularly donates some of its profits to charity. I did a search, hoping to find something like "5p of every pound is given to charity" but to no avail. I therefore assume that there's a big pile of cash, which gets divided amongst the causes. Either way, I'm not happy.

If I buy a lottery ticket, and some of the money goes to charity, then I want to decide which charity it goes to.

<Rant> Far too often I hear of Lottery funded schemes such as "Reintroduce the hoodie mugger scum into society by sending them on an all-expenses-paid trip" or some such nonsense.</Rant>

I propose that a clear donation policy is laid out (maybe this already exists, but I couldn't find it). Furthermore, each lottery ticket that the punter fills in, will have, in addition to the 6 chosen numbers, an option to tick one of several boxes (the more the better) stating which charity you would like to support. You could maybe have the 10 most popular charities with their own dedicated box, but then an "Other" box, which you could tick, and then in a box next to it, you could write in block capitals the name of the charity you want to support. Handwriting recognition software could then deduce which obscure charity you want to support.

jtp, Nov 02 2006

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       First off, I don't see anything wrong with a one legged, two legged or no legged lesbian. Subtitle was in poor taste. Seccond, In NY (USA) a percentage of the Lotto ticket sales is spent on education. So I would have to say semi baked.
Chefboyrbored, Nov 03 2006
  

       One of the few good things about the UK lottery is the way that it distributes its donations to a range of lesser-known charities and organisations. Your idea would see almost all the money go to the big charities that everyone's heard of, at the expense of the smaller ones.
imaginality, Nov 03 2006
  

       Try the PlayMonday lottery; you get to choose (from a changing list of five) which charity your money goes to.
angel, Nov 03 2006
  

       [Chef] - I have no problem with lesbians, regardless of their limb count. It's just that in the area of London that I live, the government are overly PC, hence the subtitle. I've now changed it to something more nondescript. :o)   

       //a percentage of the Lotto ticket sales is spent on education. So I would have to say semi baked.//   

       Not at all. The idea is about being able to choose the charity, not for there to be a donation of a percentage.   

       [imaginality] - Fair point. A nice compromise would be for 50% of all funds to be allocated by the government (as is currently the case), and 50% decided by the punters.   

       [angel] - I didn't know about the PlayMonday game. I have to concede therefore that this is indeed part baked. I still like the idea of being able to nominate a more obscure charity using the handwriting recognition software though.
jtp, Nov 03 2006
  

       "I support using the proceeds of this ticket to: (delete as appropriate)
- Fund the lacklustre British film industry
- Build hospitals
- Build stupid attractions that nobody will want to visit
- Give more TV's to prisons
- Give more bars to prisons (metal not alcoholic)
- Other (please elaborate)
  

       Naturally in the other column I would have written that I would like my money to support the 'hidden truths charitable fund'.
hidden truths, Nov 03 2006
  

       //Naturally in the other column I would have written that I would like my money to support the 'hidden truths charitable fund'. //   

       Er, one problem there... If the charity is unrecognised, the money goes into the pot with all the rest. Nice try though.
jtp, Nov 03 2006
  

       Surely if you particularly favour specific charities, it would make more sense to just donate your pount to them rather than betting it on a 10,000,000 to 1 guess where 'a proportion' would be going to the charity.
hidden truths, Nov 03 2006
  

       Ah, but then you wouldn't satisfy your gambling addiction. I think that one of the main reasons that a percentage (I've just found out it's 28%) is donated to charity - is so that the punter's guilt about gambling is assuaged.
jtp, Nov 03 2006
  

       I don't know it's a good idea to give them choice of charity as it would make the 'charitable' part of gambling more salient and thus perhaps encourage people to gamble. It's rather like then they were considering adding vitamin B1 to alcoholic beverages to stop some of the major forms of brain damage from lifelong alcohol abuse. They decided against it as then people might start thinking of alcohol as 'healthy' and use that to rationalise drinking it. (they put the B1 in bread instead - apparently 'those kind' of alcoholics live on alcohol and bread)
cetacean, Nov 04 2006
  

       Easy, don't play lottery's. If you want to gamble, and you want the proceeds to go to charity do the following. 1. start a business that can be automated in terms of mechanics technoligy or labor (of course easier said than done. But after all if your on this site, you probly have some good ideas anyhow.) 2. invest the income in real estate 3 invest the income from real estate into private loans and tax liens 4. live off the interest and donate the excess to a charity of your choice.
nustada, Nov 04 2006
  
      
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