When my father was dying, every visit would end with him gripping my wrist and asking the same urgent question: “Have you done my lottery numbers?” Nothing else beyond his hospice bed concerned him now. His only hope was for a final fleck of luck, to win the legacy he could never earn: “I’d give it all to you.”

Like many Lotto devotees, he had never set foot in a betting shop, let alone a casino. He despised men who gambled away their wages. But this was a flutter, the tiny stake for a big dream, a national game that someone had to win — so why not him?

Camelot’s decision to double the price of a lottery ticket to £2 has largely been shrugged off. Well, buy fewer tickets then. If you can’t afford it, don’t waste your cash. Except people’s lottery lines are comprised of kids’ birthdays, wedding anniversaries, old house numbers. Not putting them on your usual ticket would be like chucking away your lucky charms. And serve you right if that week those lottery balls came up.

Lucky numbers are what many Lotto customers have instead of lucky bank accounts or lucky parents or lucky jobs: it is predominantly the less well-off who enter the draw. And most will continue to shell out £10 for their five-line ticket and scrape back the fiver elsewhere.

In a recession, when more lives are uncertain, lotteries always thrive. Camelot’s sales have risen by 35 per cent since 2002; the number of players has gone up by 3.4 per cent since last summer alone. In tough economic times people may cancel their holiday, postpone buying that new fridge, but still sling a few quid on the chance they might win enough to pay for it all.

Janice Turner | This article can be read in full at thetimes.co.uk

Image by DaGoaty