TV Scope: Each time we buy a lottery ticket we are investing in our own private fantasy, fuelled by our version of what happiness is. This programme threw a large bucket of cold water on all of those "it could be you" ads designed to seduce us into parting with our cash in pursuit of that idealised happiness.
A Decade of Lottery Disasters
UTV, Tuesday, December 14th
Its relentless litany of the unhappiness experienced by multi-millionaire winners confirmed that fantasies are most pleasurable when left in your imagination.
The "disasters" of the title experienced by some of those featured were, however self-inflicted. Their behaviour suggested that becoming super-rich only accentuated the already unattractive sides of their nature.
Rob, we sensed, has always been a show-off, and £7.5 million allowed him to do it on a really big way. He flaunted his mansion with his bar, his pool and his line of cars in the driveway. The less-than-friendly response of some of the locals to Rob's conspicuous wealth resulted in him having to invest heavily in security including personal bodyguards. His complaints about his "loss of freedom" did not generate much sympathy on our part.
With Micheal, a petty criminal, who inspired a tabloid heading of 'Lottery Lout moves into Leafy Village', our sympathy was with his neighbours.
His £7 million win became a disaster for them, as he turned his very large garden into a race track for his fellow louts, where he kept them revved up with large amounts of drugs.
For Mike, it was the tabloids' vicious vilifying of him which turned his £22.5 million win into a nightmare. He became a public hate figure, abused by strangers in the street. "All those people who paid £1 for their ticket, they think I've got their money," he reckoned. Some 22.5 million people equals a lot of resentment and Mike felt he was trapped in a limbo of one. He didn't belong with his old friends and their mortgages, and the "rich gang" looked down on his crass lottery money.
The programme did not address this issue, such as the need for regulations to prevent winners like Mike from having to deal with such vast wins. The need to safeguard the privacy of the winner was also not addressed, although for Thomas it was his choice to pursue a blatantly hedonistic lifestyle which led to his downfall. His fondness of girls, champagne and yachts on the Costa Del Sol led to him losing his £6 million to a very clever con man.
In the midst of all the stories supporting the evidence that The Beatles may have been right when they sang that money can't buy love, there was also the reality that diamonds are still a girl's best friend.
The most bizarre story was that of Howard, a reality-challenged painter and decorator, who was so desperate to impress his wife that he lied to her that he had won the lotto and who was to continue to blur the lines between fantasy and reality enough to bring her on a massive spending spree.
The programme, at one and a half hours, was much too long and the repetition of the clichés about money, happiness and fools became tedious. It left many unanswered questions.
What are people who have dealt well with their lottery wins like? How do they differ from those who appeared in this programme? What does make people happy?
Before the days of lottery tickets for sale at every street corner, we lit candles and prayed that God would grant us our wishes.
This programme suggested that unless we have an exceptionally strong moral base, that candle may still be the safer option.
Olive Travers is a clinical psychologist working in the north west.