It could be you! 👉
The UK’s first National Lottery was drawn on Saturday 19th November 1994, just about 2 months after I started my first job in finance in the City of London. One of my new colleagues hosted a dinner for our graduate trainee group that evening and bought a one pound ticket for each of his guests.
I remember being fascinated observing which of the assembled crew were keen to form risk pooling syndicates and those others that felt that this was perhaps a moonshot opportunity to escape from a career of the ‘all-nighters’ in the office that had already become a staple for us junior bankers.
After a decade of jumbo privatization share offerings, the Conservative government had become fairly accomplished at getting the public to part with its money. The offerings of British Telecom, British Gas and the various other utilities had offered pretty reliable (but modest) “stagging” profits for retail investors. However, the majority of the new cohort of retail investors quickly returned their focus away from the stock market and to their daily lives.
The nationwide media blitz for the lottery, however, led by ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, was firmly focused on the dreamers. The “The Hand of Good Fortune” TV campaign placed a vision of a celestial finger identifying the recipient of life-changing fortune with a God-like voice booming “It’s you!”.
That catchphrase has been echoing in my head for a couple of years as I have observed the Robinhood-ification of equity markets. Forget risk adjusted returns, the market is after those moonshots. 5% delta weekly calls on Nvidia have merged with a 3 leg accumulator ‘parlay’ bets in the sports books.
This is the zeitgeist in which we find ourselves. I did not find it remotely surprising - on returning to London this week - to learn that the National Lottery have brought the “It could be you” slogan back out of retirement after 31 years. This rodent has a hunch why they have chosen to do so.