Postcode Lottery
I read today that a woman has failed in her attempt to get compensation from the organisers of the Dutch National Postcode Lottery following her postcode winning when she had elected not to participate. Her neighbours shared a jackpot worth £9.35 million, but since Helene de Gier chose not to play she didn't win a penny.
The compensation claim focussed on de Gier's complaint that the loss had caused her mental distress and trauma, that the mere writing of her address caused her heartbreak and that the media attention on her winning neighbourhood was an invasion of privacy. The claimant also made a point of denying that she wasn't a sore loser.
Thankfully, the court case in Amsterdam was thrown out, but this kind of story does highlight how some people are just never happy. In this case the woman was given the opportunity to participate in a postcode lottery. Presumably she weighed up the cost of participation and decided that her chance of winning wasn't high enough to justify the expense. Or perhaps she decided against taking part for some other reason. Maybe she thought that lotteries aren't a good thing in general. Whatever her reasoning, she made a conscious choice, and she must have known at that point that if she decided not to be in the lottery, she was also deciding not to win it if her postcode came up.
And then it happened. Her postcode struck metaphorical gold, and her neighbours became millionaires. She didn't. But instead of taking the missed win on the chin, she decided to complain about the fact that she'd exercised her freedom of choice and just happened to make the wrong one.
Imagine what the world would be like if the courts did listen to such complainers - we'd all have scores of opportunities to claim damages from someone or other. I could lodge a complaint against Angelina that her being with Brad makes me miserable and envious. Or I could lodge a complaint with the tourist board in Fiji that their advertisements cause me mental anguish whenever I look out of my window and see nothing but grey British rain.
Okay, maybe that sounds a bit too good, but if such complaints were allowed to hold water then we could all be victims as well as victors. We might win a jackpot and our neighbour might try and prosecute us for having a better car, or a bigger barbeque. Or we might get a promotion and be sued by a colleague who wanted the same deal.
As long as there are enough sensible people in the world to prevent the legal system from going totally mad, this nightmare scenario should never manifest itself. And in the meantime, the rule of thumb that all lottery players have lived by for decades will continue to hold true: You have to be in it to win it!
Article Last Updated: 25/06/2007 14:24:04
