[Tealeaf]

Well said Willow. The way that lottery proceeds are spent is a disgrace. It involves umpteen quango's and thousands of bureaucrats, none of whom are accountable to anyone; they make crackpot decisions on expenditure mainly based upon how well a form has been completed. Is it any wonder that lottery participation is now half of when it began 10 years or so ago?

The simple solution would be to allocate post prize-proceeds to the area in which the money is raised, with maybe a bit going to a "county" pot and a bit going to a "national pot", i.e. 70% goes to Hyndburn/20% is spent on Lancashire projects and 10% goes into the national pot. The local coucil - who are answerable to the electorate - would be responsible for deciding priorities. The overall take would invariably rise because a) there would no longer be stupid expenditure on unwarrented projects and b) people would see the money spent where it was raised.