Portuguese Losers

I feel obliged to "destacar" the awful headline from one of Lisbon's free distribution daily papers today - the Portuguese are losing millions on Euromillions! Over the last three weeks, the difference between the amounts bet and received by Portuguese punters is more than 64 million euros. Brilliant!

Lets see. If 20% of all bets are lost in tax and the jackpot has not been paid in that period, associated with a sharply increased level of bets due to the huge jackpots, where's the surprise? It would be newsworthy if the Portuguese loss ratio were higher than other countries, but that would have required some serious research. Even so, a little work must have gone into arriving at the 64M€ figure - shame it only qualifies as news for its sensation value.

Personally, I got a 11-1 payout last week - enough to keep me betting for another three months. I wonder where the big prize will finally go - luck of the Irish again, or Portuguese underdogs?