Surely the Lotto is nature's most humbling and amazing force: more powerful than an angry Social Partner, more miraculous than a nicotine patch, more life-changing than a full Steve Austin bionic reconstruction.
What else can yank us, in the twinkling of an eye, out of our dismal lives of education/exploitation/expiration and into a state of grace in a leisurely world of idleness and luxury? Multiple mortgage-free homes, Ferraris for all the family, wristwatches made of pure plutonium… these are the plans that burble from the gleeful lips of Lotto winners, and rightly so.
Of course there are always the tedious few who proudly declaim that the cash won't change them, that they'll report into Mr. Burkett in Hayes Haberdashery at 9am on Monday, same as they have for the past ninety years. These people don't deserve to win and should be made to give the money back – or better still, to convert their lately acquired fortunes into fivers and throw the whole damn lot into the air, ideally right outside the Examiner offices on Lapp's Quay.
We've all heard the depressing statistics about the futility of even buying a ticket, how the odds are so low that you're more likely to be hit by lightning or squashed by Elvis landing a flying saucer on your head. Well thanks a heap, mathematics! Do you mind if we dream a little dream over here? And what is the Lotto after all but the very stuff of dreams, a sort of magical divine selection, the hand of Zeus descending from the clouds to pick me up and deposit me gently into Jennifer Aniston's arms, somewhere in Malibu
But here's the thing. There are people, believe it or not, to whom these delirious fantasies of Lotto wealth seem quite pathetic. Take, say, Barry O'Callaghan. A recent estimate values the 39-year-old publishing and software mogul at almost €350m – so the average Lotto jackpot, to him, is about as exciting as winning a Christmas turkey would be to me (note: I have never won a Christmas turkey). Beside such colossi, we are mere monkeys in the zoo, munching innocently on the insects we pick from our mangy proletarian hides.
We can take some consolation in the existence of people like Sean Quinn, who's apparently worth two and half billion. I like to think that the O'Callaghans of this world look at the Quinns and think, enviously: "Flash gits, nobody needs that much." For there's always someone better – and worse – off than you, in the end. Exactly how much is enough? And how long is a piece of string, anyway?