“The odds are that, if you’re reading this piece, you don’t play the National Lottery. I say ‘play’ advisedly because, for millions of your fellow citizens, there’s nothing playful about the Lottery at all. Yes, they may say, they’re only having a bit of a flutter, but in the back of their clouded minds, as they stand hunched by the till on a rainy Tuesday morning in Solihull or Swindon, there lurk the phantoms of freedom, effortless sexual conquest, power and possession – all the things that near-limitless money might buy.   More...