Tuesday 6 November 2007

Lottery scratch cards withdrawn due to poor maths skills

From The Manchester Evening News:

Lottery cards withdrawn due to poor maths skills

So it seems that Camelot have had to withdraw some scratch cards from the market because they caused mass confusion, with many people believing they'd won. The aim of the cards was to 'find' (scratch off) a number that was lower than the initial number given to you - there was some penguin theme involved I believe.

Anyhow, you wouldn't believe how dense some people are...or maybe you would. Here goes:

"The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: "On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't.

"I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8..."

Leave a comment, or read the 3 comments so far.

cathy said...

Diolch. Now I understand what people (quite a few) were going on about on the bus this morning! Several people, not all young by any means, seem to have thought they had won, as did the retailers, but they hadn't.

cathy said...

Same story made the News Quiz on Radio 4 tonight - just thought you may be interested

Anonymous said...

The standards of maths teaching in this country ...!

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