We're going to gamble our way out of a recession

Look, it was either Jenni or that fat bloke in the shiny suit.

Yes I know Jenni Falconer doesn't introduce the Saturday night Lottery draw in her draws but I thought it was more attention grabbing than a photograph of forty nine balls dropping to illustrate one of the weeks more intriguing stories from the financial pages of the newspapers.

National Lottery sales are expected to climb to £5.7bn for the 12 months to March, surpassing the previous £5.5bn record, which was set in 1998. It's astonishing that at a time when disposable income is declining in real terms for the majority of people in the U.K that sales of lottery tickets and particularly scratchcards are on the increase. I've stood behind people in the queue to buy a paper who will put what appears to be the last change they possess into the hands of the shopkeeper in exchange for a lucky dip on Lotto or a scratchcard.

Ticket sales have increased by around 18 per cent since the start of the second Lottery licence in 2002, according to the operator Camelot, while the number of players has grown more than 5 per cent in five years. The rise means that the direct returns to good causes are set to climb beyond £1.5bn for the year. Players will have also received a boost, with returns in the form of prize money expected to rise above £2.9bn.

It's interesting though to cast your minds back to 1994 when the Lottery started and some of those big wins in the first few months, the couple from Blackburn who won £18 million springs to mind, these days the Saturday jackpot rarely gets beyond £4 million in a rollover week. There is also strong anecdotal evidence that the lottery is now seen by some people as simply another form of gambling and not the game of chance most of us see it as, if that makes sense, I've heard of people from the local Chinese community spending upwards of £150 on a Saturday afternoon on tickets - that's per person per week, this is serious gambling.