It looks like my days of playing the lottery will be ending in October, they are adding ten more balls so increasing them from 49 to 59 and the odds on winning the jackpot jumps from 14 million to 1 to 45 million to one. They say they are making up for it by adding another prize, you will get something for getting 2 balls correct, another bloody lottery ticket, well whoopy.

Hey everyone, just wondered if someone could help me (sorry for the long post). I have been on support group ESA for the last 2 years (after being on Incapacity Benefit for the previous 10) as I am unable to work due to disability. Over the years, i've managed to rack up around £8,000 of debt (including a £2,200 overdraft) through various "buy now, pay later" sites, i've always paid them off in time, but they've always been there. My partner who lives with me won £20,000 on the National Lottery a month ago, the first thing we done was inform ESA and housing benefit about this. At the same time, we instantly paid off all our debts of £8,000 without really giving it a second thought. The debt has been dragging us down for a while now and we were getting charged interest on my overdraft and part of the debt. We just felt so blessed that we could pay it off and start a fresh. We also bought a new mattress as I have a curve in my spine and our old one was making me wake up every hour in absolute agony, a new fridge freezer as our old one broke 12 days after our win and a new washing machine as our old one was starting to get a bit smelly due to complications my disability gives me (i'll leave it there!) We have around £11,000 left now. Housing benefit wrote back and informed us nothing would be changing, we'd still be getting our housing benefit, but I haven't had much joy from ESA. The first call (which I made the day the lottery money cleared in my partners account as we aren't the type of people that would be anything other than 100% honest) they said they want it in writing, so I done that the same day. Couple of days later I was due to be paid ESA and didn't get it so rung back and asked why and got told it had been suspended until the decision maker made a decision. After a month of waiting (and calling each week to chase them up) they finally told me that the decision maker would need to see extra details (I sent copies of our debts we paid off, bank statements etc. with the first letter). I got a capital expenditure questionnaire through the post today and filled it all out, but after doing a bit of research on the internet i've now seen that if the debt wasn't forceable by court, they can use that against you? I had absolutely no idea about this, I thought our benefit would go down a bit because we had a bit of extra money, but I never ever expected to be in a position that they will try to claim we've only paid that debt off to carry on getting benefit. Does anyone have any experience of this type of situation? I guess i'm just wondering what to expect back really... Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

Credit union members are being warned not to respond to [problem] emails informing them they have won prizes in a national credit union lottery. Members replying to emails sent out from culottery.co.uk are likely to be asked to reveal bank details and risk identity fraud and theft. While many credit unions run lotteries to raise funds for their credit union, the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) is advising all its members that there is no such national lottery. ABCUL states that although the culottery.co.uk lists a number of credit unions on its website, none are associated with any such lottery. It also points out that photographs of alleged lottery winners are actually doctored photos taken from the Connecticut State Lottery website. http://www.ccrmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8318&Itemid=35