How many Londonist readers who've never thought of buying a lottery ticket in their lives before have found themselves tempted in the recent weeks by the obscenely escalating Euro Millions jackpot (estimated prize this week: £125,000,000).
And how many of you have actually went out and bought a ticket only to have some high-minded killjoy let you know that your chances of winning are akin to playing a roulette wheel five times the size of the M25, or picking a card from deck 15 miles high (those are real statistics by the way, in fact the chances are around 76 million to one).
Well, one punter has had enough of the odds being so stacked against him and has decided to do something about it. Laurence Hewings of Shepherds Bush decided that if he was getting the same odds on the Euro Million as he would if he placed a bet on a manned expedition to Mars discovering the Loch Ness monster there, or David Beckham winning the World Cup as England manager with Brooklyn Beckham scoring the winning goal and Romeo coming on as a substitute (again, we aren't making these up) then he wanted to put his hard-earned on something worthwhile, namely the likelihood that he will get hit by lightning.
Hewings took the idea to WIlliam Hill who were more than happy to offer him 1000/1 odds on the chances of him being struck by a bolt from the blue at some point in his lifetime, so the enterprising Hewings promptly laid down a stake of £10.
William Hill 's spokesman Rupert Adams said:
This is definitely one of the strangest requests that we have received and is up there with Arthur King who backed himself to die within six months of placing his bet. But as he came to us, we decided to offer him odds of 1000/1. Considering the bet is open for his lifetime and that US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimate lightning strikes the earth 20 million times a year, he could be in with shout.
Can we suggest that Mr Hewings bookmarks this site right away.
