UK National Lottery Research Articles

John Haigh 1941–2021

John Haigh 1941–2021

Oxygen isotope dendrochronology of Llwyn Celyn; One of the oldest houses in Wales

We report the application of oxygen isotope dendrochronology to date a high-status and remarkably unaltered late medieval hall house on the eastern border of South Wales. The oak timbers have either short and complacent ring series, or very strong growth disturbance, and none were suitable for ring-width dendrochronology. By using stable oxygen isotopes from the latewood cellulose, rather than ring widths, it was possible to cross-match and date all 14 timber samples and to provide felling dates related to several phases of building. The hall and solar cross-wing were constructed shortly after 1420CE, which is remarkably early. The house was upgraded using timbers felled in the winter of 1695/6CE by ceiling over of the hall and inserting a chimney. A separate small domestic building was added at the same time and the addition of the kitchen is likely to be contemporaneous. A substantial beast house was added a few years before the house was refurbished, emphasising the importance of cattle as the main source of wealth. A small barn with timbers felled in spring 1843 CE was added later. Llwyn Celyn is one of the most important domestic buildings in Wales, but without the new approach none of the phases of its evolution could have been dated precisely. Oxygen isotope dendrochronology has enormous potential for dating timbers that have small numbers of rings and/or show severe growth disturbance and it works well in regions where tree growth is not strongly constrained by climate. The research was generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust, Natural Environment Research Council, Landmark Trust and the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Lottery pricing and price elasticity dispersion in the UK and Canada

ABSTRACTWe estimate effective price elasticities for different quantiles of the demand distribution of the UK National Lottery and the Canadian Lotto 649. We show that price elasticities vary significantly from draw to draw and have a tendency to increase with lottery participation and jackpot size. Our findings indicate that setting lottery rules on the basis of mean effective price elasticities should be faced with caution because expected profits are negatively related to the evident variation of elasticities among lottery draws. We also simulate alternative active rollover distributions and show that limiting the rollover accumulation by withholding portions and ploughing them back in future nonrollover draws is potentially profitable.

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015 Searle Kochberg (bio) End of Project Event, JW3 (Jewish Community Centre, London, UK), November 24, 2015. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In The Savage Mind1 Claude Lévi-Strauss explains how mythological thought and rites are continuously broken down and rebuilt again through new constructions of already existing sets of events, and how rituals serve to bring unity to previously separate groups. This makes ritual particularly fertile ground for bricolage—Lévi-Strauss’s term for tinkering: the (re)working of found materials to piece together new structures, identities, and rituals. On November 24, 2015, at London’s JW3—the Jewish Community Centre—a yearlong Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) research project culminated in a bricolage “happening” of ritual objects, photographs, storytelling, rabbinical dialogues on “queering religion,” and an evening screening of the project’s five LGBTQI Jewish ritual films—all part of the Ritual Reconstructed/Connected Communities project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In its efforts Ritual Reconstructed has in no small way been facilitated by Liberal Judaism, which in the UK has led the way on LGBTQI inclusivity by being responsive to social need and by being “practical in so many ways,” to quote Rabbi Janet Darley.2 As a filmmaker, I have had the great pleasure in the last four years of working with the LGBTQI Jewish community on three big projects: my film-based PhD, [End Page 186] My Jewish London; the Rainbow Jews project (funded by the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund); and now the Ritual Reconstructed project. What has struck me from the beginning is the way this community has—since the 1970s—indeed “tinkered” to create its own symbols and ritual, all to bring a sense of togetherness and to “pump up individuals with emotional energy.”3 The philosophy behind the LGBTQI ritual activities of the Ritual Reconstructed project is essentially Reconstructionist, based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan.4 It is an approach to Jewish custom and belief that aims toward communal decision-making. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The logotype for the RR project. Seder means “order.” Here, a “foreign” LGBT orange challenges the traditional order on the Passover Seder plate. © Wyman Babbage. One of the films screened at JW3 was Pride Seder,5 a record of the 2015 eve-of-London Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue. An orange takes center stage at this Pride ritual, along with other “foreign” queer objects to be tinkered with at this LGBTQI bricolage event: a drag queen’s high-heel shoe, a brick, foreign “fruits,” rainbow-colored ribbons. The orange on the seder plate [End Page 187] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The LGBT Pride Seder plate at South London Liberal Synagogue is full of references to Stonewall 1969—the Trans high heels, the brick, the rainbow colors—with the adjacent orange referencing an LGBT Passover Seder plate. © Mary Humphrey. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Congregation and crew filming the Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue, June 2015. © Mary Humphrey. [End Page 188] is a key ritual motif for many LGBTQI Jews. Indeed, the Ritual Reconstructed logotype incorporates this image. Where does the orange motif come from? As Rabbi Janet Burden has commented on www.ritualreconstructed.com, “Some years ago, a group of students at Oberlin College wished to make a statement about Jewish inclusiveness. . . . Either they, or a Jewish feminist called Susannah Heschel, had the idea of using an orange to symbolize inclusivity: It was made up of many segments, but it formed a whole . . . [that shows] that no one should be excluded from the life of our Jewish community.”6 Jean Rouch’s ethnographic films foreground the creative partnerships of the filmmaker, the “participant observer,” and the community being represented. The films we made together for Ritual Reconstructed attempted to live up to Rouch’s ideal of a creative interaction and synthesis. Ritual events were organized from within the LGBTQI Jewish Liberal community. I, in turn, organized camerawork and editing with my crew at the University of Portsmouth...

Slumdog Millionaire and the Knowledge-Based Economy: Poverty as Ontology

Slumdog Millionaire and the Knowledge-Based EconomyPoverty as Ontology Georgia Christinidis (bio) The problem is therefore moved from political philosophy to first philosophy (or, if one likes, politics is returned to its ontological position). —Agamben, Homo Sacer “IT COULD BE YOU”: IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008) is a prototypically neoliberal narrative of the entrepreneurial individual who succeeds by capitalizing on their knowledge; it excludes the possibility of collective and political responses to the poverty it represents. In valorizing Western knowledges over Indian knowledges and assigning an important function to tacit knowledge as a determinant of success, Slumdog Millionaire is symptomatic of the structural inequalities that both shape the knowledge-based economy and are perpetuated by it. The film’s claim that Jamal’s success is his destiny, which is reinforced by the narrative structure, turns poverty from a political problem into an ontological one, thus removing it from the realm of history and agency. Slumdog Millionaire’s weak conception of agency is typical of Boyle’s oeuvre, where the trope of the game show conceptualizes human life as ambiguously poised between determinism and contingency but, in either case, inaccessible to transformative agency. The ineffectuality of agency is partly a product of the atomism of Boyle’s films, which is only disrupted by sparsely sketched romantic relationships that do not provide any ground for transformative practices. Relationships beyond that of the romantic couple are dismissed as [End Page 38] subject to betrayal, failure, and abuse, so that they, too, are eliminated as the basis of transformation. The opening scenes of Slumdog Millionaire are set in a police station. The protagonist, Jamal Malik, is being questioned because he “is one question away from winning twenty million rupees” on Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of the British game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? An extradiegetic question asks the viewer to decide how this could have happened. Like the questions on the show itself, it has four possible answers, only one of which is correct: Jamal may have been lucky, he may be a genius, he may have cheated, or “It is written” that he will succeed. The police assume Jamal must have cheated, as it is inconceivable that a “slumdog,” employed as a chai wallah in a call center, could advance by honest means where “doctors, lawyers, and general-knowledge wallahs” have failed. They torture him in their efforts to extract a confession. Jamal insists that he knew the answers, and the inspector eventually asks him to explain. As they watch the previous evening’s show on video, Jamal tells the inspector the story behind each answer. The stories behind the answers turn into a story of his life, told in a series of flashbacks. The drama of Jamal’s struggle against apparently insurmountable odds is emphasized by the film’s pace as well as by Boyle’s use of the canted camera (Koehler, 76). Once Jamal has accounted for his success, he is cleared, and the police drive him to the studio in time for the show’s second installment. At the studio, Jamal correctly guesses the answer to the show’s final question, wins twenty million rupees, and is reunited with his childhood sweetheart and true love, Latika. Meanwhile, “It is written” is revealed to be the correct answer to the opening question. Criticism of Slumdog Millionaire has hitherto mainly focused on the film’s portrayal of India. The film itself, as well as its enthusiastic reception by reviewers and audiences, engenders or at least perpetuates the metonymic reduction of India to slums and Bollywood (Desai, 75; Gehlawat, 6; Koehler). Nevertheless, the film’s representation of poverty both understates its real extent and impact1 and sensationalises, romanticises, and depoliticizes it (Sengupta, 603). The portrayal of India in Slumdog Millionaire is, therefore, profoundly orientalist (Desai, 76–77; Gehlawat; Sengupta). The film’s overt message is upbeat: “It could be you,” the first advertising slogan of the UK National Lottery, could also serve as a tagline for Slumdog Millionaire. [End Page 39] For if even a so-called slumdog can win a game show like Who Wants...

Reshaping the field: building restorative capital

Restorative justice is best known as an alternative approach for dealing with crime and wrongdoing. Yet as the restorative movement has grown it is increasingly being deployed in different arenas. Based on a two-year study funded by the UK National Lottery, this article provides an early glimpse into how people experience the introduction of restorativeness as cultural change within an organisational context. Using a combination of observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups, this research explores how different staff groups react to, adapt to and resist the introduction of a new ethos and language within their organisation. Drawing on the ideas of Bourdieu (1986), it appears that a new form of restorative cultural capital is emerging that threatens the very integrity of the values restorative justice claims to uphold.

Dr Fisher's Casebook: Take a Chance on Me

SignificanceVolume 10, Issue 1 p. 27-27 FeaturesFree Access Dr Fisher's casebook: Take a chance on me First published: 15 February 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2013.00635.xAboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat I was intrigued by the story from December 2012 of the Coptic Church choosing a new pope. They did this by drawing lots. Candidates from within the church put themselves forward for a lengthy selection process in which 2500 prominent Christians from both inside and outside the church whittled them down to three candidates. A blindfolded altar boy then picked a name from a bowl1. This is not a new procedure. The Copts have been doing it since the eighteenth century, but I had a pretty good memory that it went back at least to Homer. Sure enough, in the seventh book of the Iliad, we learn how, to decide who would face Hector in single combat (in Ian Johnston's translation2), The nine menmarked their lots and threw them in Agamemnon's helmet.Troops held up their hands, praying to the gods, saying,as they gazed up at wide heaven:“Father Zeus,let the choice fall on Ajax, or Tydeus’ son,or on Mycenae's king, rich in gold.”Geranian horseman Nestor shook the helmet.From it fell out that very lot the men were hoping for,the one for Ajax. Choosing by random sampling from a panel of volunteers thus goes back at least to the Bronze Age. I have no earlier authority, I'm afraid, but that's good enough for me. If we can choose the head of a church or a single combat champion that way, why not others? How about a head of state? Instead of the genetic lottery of male primogeniture, why not a more genuinely random lottery instead? We could ask for volunteer monarchs and then draw lots. I'm thinking here of the Homeric version; I'd skip the sorting by the wise used by the Copts. That way, whoever gets the job will want it and everybody who wants it gets an equal chance. In the US, it would certainly be cheaper than the long and arduous system of primaries, conventions, and multi-billion-dollar campaigns. We could go one step further. I have often thought that wanting power should immediately disqualify someone from being given it. We could include all of us in the lottery, even me, and I definitely don't want it. I would much rather make jokes from the sidelines. The scale is getting a bit big for a blindfolded altar boy or a king's helmet, but modern technology would cope. The UK National Lottery has no problem in drawing a 14 million to one shot. We would only need to increase, from six to seven, the numbers between 1 and 49 which punters choose to get a one in 86 million chance of becoming our next king or queen, enough to usually provide one winner from the UK's 60-odd million population. (What happens if there is a rollover with no winners, or two winners having to split the jackpot, would have to be decided in advance. Perhaps double winners could rule on alternate days.) We could add an eighth and include every country where our monarch reigns. I know you want to know what happened to Ajax. The fight was called a draw by the heralds and both men quit to fight another day, Hector to be killed by swift Achilles and indomitable Ajax to be struck by lightning from almighty Zeus. See how educational Significance can be? References 1http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/04/egypt-coptic-pope-balancing-act. Google Scholar 2Homer, The Iliad, trans. Ian Johnston, 2nd edn (2006). Arlington, VA: Richer Resources Publications. Google Scholar Volume10, Issue1February 2013Pages 27-27 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Investigating the Behavioural Characteristics of Lottery Players by Using a Combination Preference Model for Conscious Selection

SummaryConscious selection describes the process by which lottery players choose numbers non-randomly on their tickets. The only theoretical model that has been produced to date models conscious selection as number preference; for example players may tend to choose ‘lucky’ numbers. This model, however, does not fit the observed distributions of the numbers of winners of prizes well. We present a theoretical model in which clusters of similar number combinations are preferentially chosen. This three-parameter model gives a convincing visual fit to the long-tailed distributions of numbers of winners and accurately reproduces the correlations between the numbers of winners of the various tiers of prize. Our model is fitted to lottery data and the fit is compared with those of previous models that have been employed for conscious selection. We then use the model to contrast features of lottery player behaviour in two of the biggest lotteries in the world: the UK National Lottery game, lotto, and Spain’s El Gordo de la Primitiva. Finally, we use the model to detect any changes in UK player behaviour over time.

A lottery within a lottery? An examination of the distribution of lottery funds in England

The UK National Lottery has been in operation since 1994. An examination of the regional distribution of awards per head of population suggests marked spatial disparities with London doing particularly well and Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the North East faring much better than other regions. Such disparities also exist at English Local Authority level with London and some major provincial centres doing much better than more rural authorities. Such inequalities may give grounds for concern, given that they appear to replicate those for other types of Government spending. The results of an empirical model designed to explain the spatial distribution of awards suggest that, in addition to a London effect, levels of deprivation have a positive impact. Another important explanatory variable which has a positive impact on lottery funding is the qualifications of residents which might plausibly reflect the quality of lottery bids received from an area. However, once these factors are taken account of, there is little evidence that rural areas fare badly.

Participation and level of play in the UK National Lottery and correlation with spending on other modes of gambling

The paper analyses UK data, collected from the Family Expenditure Survey, for over 6000 households. The focus is on participation in, and level of expenditure on, the national lotto game. Controlling for standard demographic, socio-economic and income variables, and some non-standard lifestyle indicators, it examines correlation between lotto play and expenditure on six other forms of gambling as well as on alcohol and tobacco. Correlations with lotto participation and expenditure are found to be positive and strong in most cases. Implications for the regulation of the gambling sector and for taxation policy are outlined and discussed.

Modelling the Probability Distribution of Prize Winnings in the UK National Lottery: Consequences of Conscious Selection

SummaryIn the statistical and economics literature on lotteries, the problem of designing attractive games has been studied by using models in which sales are a function of the structure of prizes. Recently the prize structure has been proxied by using the moments of the prize distribution. Such modelling is a vital input into the process of designing appealing new lottery games that can generate large revenues for good causes. We show how conscious selection, the process by which lottery players choose numbers non-randomly, complicates the multivariate distribution of prize winners by introducing massive overdispersion of numbers of winners, and large correlations between the numbers of different types of prize winner. Although it is possible intuitively to reach a qualitative understanding of the data, an a priori model does not fit well. We therefore construct an empirical model of the joint distribution of prize winners and use it to calculate the moments of ticket value as a function of sales. The new model gives much higher estimates of ticket value moments, particularly skewness, than previously obtained. Our results will have consequences for policy decisions regarding game design. A spin-off result is that, on the basis of the results of model fitting, lottery players may increase the expected value of their ticket by strategically choosing numbers which are less popular with other lottery players.

Working Class Women, Gambling and the Dream of Happiness

This paper offers an account of the relationship between gender, class and notions of happiness. It draws on recent research conducted into the experiences of working class women who play the UK National Lottery. In particular, it explores the notion that gambling offers working class women the opportunity to dream of the ‘good life’ – of enhancing their lives and of making ‘improvements’ to their own and their families’ well-being. In this paper, the discourse of happiness will be examined, and the tacit assumption that working class women in particular are prone to turning to gambling as a last ditch attempt to personal and emotional fulfilment will be challenged. The paper argues that developing understandings of culture and consumption practices is imperative for producing a more complex understanding of the subjective realities of working class women's everyday lives. By engaging with feminist accounts of respectability, daydream and fantasy, the paper will present a thorough exploration of National Lottery play in working class women's everyday experiences of happiness.

Pure dead brilliant?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of The Glasgow Story (TGS) digitisation project, funded by the UK's National Lottery's New Opportunities Fund digitisation (NOF‐Digi) programme, and a critique of the evaluation process itself. The paper emphasises the need for user impact evaluation and for results to be brought into the public domain in order to substantiate the claimed benefits of digitisation projects and programmes and inform ongoing digitisation activity. By critiquing the evaluation methods used the paper also hopes to contribute to the development of good practice in evaluation methodology.Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaires, focus groups, data logs, online surveys and feedback forms were used to gather user responses and make impact assessments.FindingsThe paper suggests that whilst the evaluation can point to some positive impacts that justify the project's innovative approach, practical constraints on the evaluation and methodological flaws ultimately limit the value of the results. The paper concludes that effective evaluation of digitisation needs to extend beyond individual projects, or at the very least, employ generic evaluation tools that facilitate comparison between different projects and approaches.Originality/valueFew digitisation projects attempt to assess their impact and fewer still make their results available. As one of the larger NOF‐Digi projects, the results from the TGS evaluation provide a unique window on one of the major digitisation initiatives in recent years.

Distribution of UK National Lottery grants across local authority areas

Much of the high taxation on UK national lottery products is hypothecated to ‘Good Causes’ distribution funds which make grants for projects in fields such as sport, the arts and heritage. We examine the distribution of grants across 376 local authority areas in England and Wales. The proportion of highly educated people and social class composition are shown to be determinants of an area's grant receipts. The results indicate regressivity in the spending of lottery taxation.

Contested Governance and Definitions of Need in the Distribution of Funding: Investigating the Regeneration-Funding Paradox and the Role of UK National Lottery Funding in Regeneration

The author explores the paradox of a burgeoning accepted definition of regeneration need together with a finite pot of money with which to fund it, and debates as to what consequently constitute the best funding-distribution structures and funding-allocation principles. This in turn provides the backdrop for an examination of aspects of the previously unresearched role of UK National Lottery funding in regeneration, as a potential variant in the contested-funding context. With the aid of results of an interview-based research project and a broader analysis of nationwide press reporting, it is concluded that Lottery funding plays both a qualitative and a quantitative role in regeneration. This is by enabling practical contestation of the status quo but also by supporting and complementing it, illustrating the validity of various dimensions of the debates. Such a capacity is explicable in terms of its unusual, part-independent, part-dependent (on government) governance configuration and positioning. However, Lottery funding is no panacea, for it exhibits as well as relieves certain tensions and trade-offs associated with the paradox. In terms of wider debates, the author demonstrates that governance and power are neglected in conventional discussions concerned with the formulaic assessment of funding need. It is also concluded that, in contrast to moves towards rationalisation and simplification, there is value in having a variety of funding streams (structures and distribution principles), albeit with consideration of how to make this work better.

Reflections on the UK National Lottery

Abstract Gambling in Britain has been transformed by the National Lottery. The small pink ticket from the newsagent's electronic outlet offers temptation of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. John Haigh examines a bet that, statistically, not one of our readers will live to win.

Domesticating Gambling: Gender, Caring and the UK National Lottery

The issue of gambling as a form of leisure practice has, to date, received very little attention from sociologists. This is despite the enormous range of consideration recently invested in gambling by policy makers, politicians, journalists, psychologists and economists. In particular, the role that gambling plays as an important part of women’s leisure patterns has been virtually ignored. In this paper, the impact of UK National Lottery play on women’s everyday leisure experiences is examined. A questionnaire was administered to a diverse group of 150 women, and 15 women from this sample volunteered to take part in in‐depth interviews. The questionnaires sought to produce a database of the frequency of lottery play, the types of games played and the amounts of money gambled. The interviews focused on individual experiences, meanings and perceptions of lottery play as a form of leisure. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the research are discussed in terms of the material and ideological constraints shaping women’s everyday experiences of leisure, and also in terms of the ways in which gender and ‘caring’ are reproduced through women’s National Lottery play. It examines the ways in which the lottery addresses a lack of time and space for women’s pursuit of leisure.

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE: CYCLES AND REACTIONS IN GAMBLING POLICIES

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE: CYCLES AND REACTIONS IN GAMBLING POLICIES

Gambling as a Base for Hypothecated Taxation: The UK's National Lottery and Electronic Gaming Machines in Australia

Gambling is now a large revenue source for many governments due to its ease of implementation, popular appeal and the high real tax rate it can bear (up to 40%). It is often promoted by spending on 'good causes' designated as 'additional' to existing government activity. This article examines the UK's National Lottery and Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs) in Queensland, Australia and shows that, in both cases, gambling taxes are often diverted into education, health and social and economic development and therefore potentially substitute for taxation raised elsewhere in the economy. In addition, there is evidence that gambling's taxation implications (against income) are doubly regressive, taking disproportionately from lower income groups and giving to those better off.

Substitution between games in the UK national lottery

Virtually all lottery agencies offer a variety of games to suit the tastes of players in an attempt to maximize revenue to the government. Using the UK National Lottery, which offers a variety of on-line and scratchcard games, the extent to which there is substitution or complementarity between games is evaluated Employing weekly data from the three UKNL lottery games offered over the sample period, it is found that own-game characteristics have, by far, the largest influence on sales. Some evidence is found suggesting that the lotto and scratchcard games are partial substitutes for one another. Thunderball sales appear independent of the other two games. Some evidence is also found that the Wednesday and Saturday drawings of the lotto game are substitutes. The overall conclusion is that Camelot has successfully designed and marketed three games that each appeal to bettors in different ways. Thus, sales from one game do not seem to seriously cannibalize the sales of the other games, with the exceptions noted above. Further, the introduction of another, temporary game (Big Draw 2000) contributed to net sales. These results also suggest that the games do not appear to be complements to each other, indicating that the various arguments as to why the games may be so (transactions costs, brand awareness, and the portfolio effect) do not appear to be very strong.