Lucky Jobs

Camelot, the organisers of the UK National Lottery, has published details of the 40 luckiest occupations, based on the job titles reported by lottery winners since the first draw was held in November 1994. At the head of the list is the construction worker, closely followed by those in administration and management. At the bottom of the list are bookmakers in 39th position and funeral directors in 40th position. The top ten occupations are as follows:

1. Construction work
2. Administration
3. Management
4. Driving
5. Catering industry
6. Manufacturing
7. Customer services
8. Financial sector
9. Care / social work, charity
10. IT / computing / electronics

What strikes me about such lists is how meaningless they are, because the "luck" or otherwise of an occupation probably has more to do with the nature of the workplace and the mentality of the people in those occupations than it does with whether a job is lucky or unlucky.

Consider the top ten occupations listed above. Almost all of them will involve a good deal of interaction with co-workers. Construction workers will socialise at lunchtime, administrators and those in management will fraternise around the water cooler or coffee machine, drivers will chat at the depot, and so on. And wherever you get a good number of colleagues chatting together on a regular basis, you are likely to get a lottery syndicate up and running. Since syndicates buy more tickets than individuals, they have more chance of winning, it's as simple as that.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, bookmakers are likely to be individuals who are most aware of the odds involved in winning a lottery, and they also have plenty of opportunities to bet on a variety of other events offering smaller potential payouts but with better odds of winning. For these reasons they aren't as likely to participate in a lottery syndicate or, in fact, to play the lottery as often on an individual basis. Likewise, funeral directors have to be sombre for a living, and with just a handful of people working in a typical funeral parlour, the topic of lottery tickets probably isn't one that comes up very often.

My conclusion then is that your occupation has nothing to do with how lucky you are, but is only likely to influence whether or not you play the lottery and whether or not you choose to do so as a member of a syndicate. Those who play regularly have more chance of winning, so before you start thinking about changing your job in order to increase your chances, first consider setting up a lottery syndicate of your own.

Article Last Updated: 19/06/2007 14:17:46

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