WHILE the public grumbles about the inequities of the tax system, the queues alongside lottery terminals provide ample evidence of the public's insatiable need to voluntarily donate additional revenue to the Government. Of course, there is always the chance, however remote, of hitting the jackpot but, as often as not, punters' pounds are swallowed up by a system which requires considerably more losers than winners. All that's left is the dubious excitement of waiting for confirmation that, for another week at least, you are again a loser.

After a teasing initial promotional campaign, the National Lottery this week lifted the veil on a "fun new game called 5-4-3-2-1", another variation on a seemingly endless theme of number permutations, a lottery based on a lottery. Fair enough it's a democratic society and this scribe is loath to deliver lectures on how people wish to dispose of their disposable income. Yet when advertising financial services, such as investment schemes and unit trusts, some token cautionary advice appears somewhere in the copy that the value of investments can go down as well as up. With personal loans which require the asset backing of property, it is mandatory to alert the borrower to the fact that should the loan be in default the property may be acquired to satisfy the debt. Risk is formally recognised.

The National Lottery, naturally enough, is keen to trumpet the possibilities of winning the word "win" or "winner" occurs 16 times in current advertising copy, the words "gamble", "lose" or "loser" not at all, which is hardly surprising. A case could be made chat lottery advertisements and point of sale material should be obliged to carry some form of financial health warning, in much the same way as tobacco products, formally stating the obvious - namely, that Lotto is a form of gambling and that your pound is at risk. One perhaps for the Advertising Standards Authority?