Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

For thinking this about lottery tickets as gifts?

43 replies

FrinkadelicA12 · 25/03/2015 10:48

Someone is leaving at work and we were discussing what to get them as a little token (we just did one small project with this person). A colleague suggested a few lottery tickets to pop in the goodbye card. I just blurted out without really thinking "oh I can't give lottery tickets as gifts I would be so mad if one of them was a big winner and I had given it away". My colleague was really shocked and thinks it is an incredibly mean attitude. I had never really thought about it much before beyond just never buying lottery tickets as gifts. She is really cross now as I have (unwittingly) converted two others to this mean view and now I have volunteered to buy a book token at lunch time instead. So am I really unreasonable to think like this? Is it really mean spirited?

OP posts:
DisappointedOne · 25/03/2015 10:52

I often chuck a lucky dip lottery ticket in a card and wish luck to the person I'm sending it to. Don't do the lottery myself very often.

worridmum · 25/03/2015 10:52

yes you are really why give anyone any gift as the gift could become stupidly valueable and you would be mad that you gave a really valueable object to someone...

squoosh · 25/03/2015 10:53

I'd faint clean away in a hissy rage if the £2 lottery ticket I gave a person turned out to be an £8,00,000 winner.

I bet this kind of thing regularly leads to some epic fallouts.

PeterParkerSays · 25/03/2015 10:53

Yes, sorry but you are. That's kind of the idea - you only spend a pound or a few pounds and they may get a larger gift as a result. I've only known people give scratch cards in birthday cards though, not lottery tickets.

If you bought the ticket specifically for person A, and gave it to them, it was never yours to win on was it, so it doesn't matter if it's a winner or not.

Original poster
FrinkadelicA12 · 25/03/2015 10:54

Oh lord am a monster.

OP posts:
Binkybix · 25/03/2015 10:54

We're probably both unreasonable, but I feel exactly the same! What is someone won millions on a ticket you could have kept for yourself? I'd find that quite hard to bounce back from.

SayraT · 25/03/2015 10:57

No you are not.

If I buy a lottery ticket for someone as a present (not that I do very often but have done for friends DC when they turn 16) I buy two with the same numbers and keep one myself just in case Grin

Alisvolatpropiis · 25/03/2015 10:58

Haha! I think exactly the same.

We can be horrible people together Grin

Original poster
FrinkadelicA12 · 25/03/2015 10:59

SayraT - that is genius!

OP posts:
squoosh · 25/03/2015 10:59

Oh you're clever Sayra.

VacantExpression · 25/03/2015 11:00

SayraT very clever!!

SayraT · 25/03/2015 11:02

Grin Solves the problem!

keepitsimple0 · 25/03/2015 11:06

I don't buy lottery tickets and think they are a weird gift to give, but I am not from here so this maybe totally normal in the UK.

but it sounds very weird not to buy someone a ticket for that reason. keep in mind, you will, in pretty much every circumstance not win. Why plan for such an unlikely event? Also, it seems like a recipe for unhappy days to have regrets for things which you don't control.

sauvignonblacks · 25/03/2015 11:07

I'm the same as sayra
No one as ever won tho but just incase eh?!

TigerTrumpet · 25/03/2015 11:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
FrinkadelicA12 · 25/03/2015 11:08

Feeling slightly less monstrous now. Or at least less alone Smile.

OP posts:
Binkybix · 25/03/2015 11:15

That's true tigertrumpet, but it's less immediate and it would also involve me choosing the same book, so it's not the same as having owned and given away the winning ticket!

engeika · 25/03/2015 11:16

I agree OP. YANBU.

I would feel sick if, after having done the lottery for years, the ticket I bought for someone else was the lucky one. Imagine if they won millions... I would find it hard to accept that.

No other gifts are likely to give that sort of return!!

SaucyJack · 25/03/2015 11:17

I reckon even Mother Teresa would come back from the dead for a good bitching session if she'd bought someone else a winning lottery ticket.

Crinkle77 · 25/03/2015 11:23

No you're right. I have known people to fall ut over this very thing.

Gottagetmoving · 25/03/2015 11:29

Well if it is ok to think the way you do OP - would it be equally ok for the person getting those lottery tickets to get pissed off if one did NOT win?
It would mean you had bought her zilch - or a few peices of paper.

You buy a gift and when you hand it over it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
YABU.

Charitybelle · 25/03/2015 11:48

I joined the syndicate at work for a similar reason. Didn't want to, but couldn't bear the thought of them all winning and me being the only one who didn't! That was £4 a month down the drain (we didn't win anything ever).
I think most people would be pretty gutted in the scenario you describe, even if they won't admit it here!

Rightokthen · 25/03/2015 11:58

I'd think the same op.

itsnotmeitsyou1 · 25/03/2015 11:59

I give lottery tickets and scratch cards as presents. But only to people I know would share if they won Wink.

QueQuesto · 25/03/2015 12:02

SayraT I know someone who buys a ticket every week with the numbers her ex husband always played so she would get half his winnings if it came up Grin.

Swipe left for the next trending thread