Negative numbers baffle scratchcard buyers.

The item was mentioned on the 'News Quiz' today.

I pay my BT bill by direct debit - £40 a month. Because I have broadband and no longer make so many long, long-distance calls, I am in credit - at present about £110! My sons say I shouldn't let them have my money, but I point out that I'm quite happy for them to save it up for me. But the reason I'm writing this is that it appears as -£110, which I've got used to now, but found it quite puzzling at first because it looks as if I owe them.
 
SusanB-M1 said:
The item was mentioned on the 'News Quiz' today.

I pay my BT bill by direct debit - £40 a month. Because I have broadband and no longer make so many long, long-distance calls, I am in credit - at present about £110! My sons say I shouldn't let them have my money, but I point out that I'm quite happy for them to save it up for me. But the reason I'm writing this is that it appears as -£110, which I've got used to now, but found it quite puzzling at first because it looks as if I owe them.
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That's why all my money related business is in the hands of a tax consultant. I often scored 15 out of 15 points in maths back in school, but this debit and credit thing in accounting – I never quite understood it. :redface1
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
A person with a mortgage of £125,000 has a lower debt than a person with a £300,000 mortgage, even though both are amounts of money you owe i.e. are negative.
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What? No. No!
The amount of money I owe is positive. I borrowed positive money from them (I bought a house with it), so I need to pay them back in positive money.

Can I borrow 10 euros from you and pay you back -10?
 
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I'm not sure the Manchester Evening News quite grasped the problem either:-

"But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6."

It's not a higher number, but it is a higher temperature. Are we comparing magnitude here , or temperature?
 
Soapy Sam said:
It's not a higher number, but it is a higher temperature. Are we comparing magnitude here , or temperature?
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It is a higher number. -5 is greater than -6. It's higher than -6. It's more than -6. Whatever words you wish to use. It bears the same relationship to -6 as 23 does to 22, which is the opposite relationship to that which 22 bears to 23.
 
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wahrheit said:
That's why all my money related business is in the hands of a tax consultant. I often scored 15 out of 15 points in maths back in school, but this debit and credit thing in accounting – I never quite understood it. :redface1
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For every credit you don't understand there's an equivalent debit you don't understand so, on balance, it's not worth worrying about.
 
Nancarrow said:
It is a higher number. -5 is greater than -6. It's higher than -6. It's more than -6. Whatever words you wish to use. It bears the same relationship to -6 as 23 does to 22, which is the opposite relationship to that which 22 bears to 23.
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I take comfort in the number line stretching out infinitely, lower this way, higher that. No loops or excursions, simplicity itself.
 
Nancarrow said:
It is a higher number. -5 is greater than -6. It's higher than -6. It's more than -6. Whatever words you wish to use. It bears the same relationship to -6 as 23 does to 22, which is the opposite relationship to that which 22 bears to 23.
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I disagree. "Higher" is a vague term and we have to define it precisely in context.
If what you mean is "Lies further to the right on a conventional number line", then yes, (-5) is "higher than" (-6) .

If what's meant is "Bigger" , then -6 is bigger than -5.
If you have $0 and spend $6 is your debt not bigger, higher, deeper or larger than if you spend $5? Minus 6 is a larger quantity than minus 5, exactly as 6 is a larger quantity than 5.

In the case of temperature, there should be no ambiguity, because temperature is a linear scale. -6 deg C is a lower temperature than -5 deg C, but the M.E.N article does not say that, it simply says "-5 is higher than -6" and the meaning of that phrase depends on context.

Particularly as people who buy many lottery tickets are often in debt and their debts get bigger, not smaller, the more they buy.
 
The example scratch card in the article clearly shows the degree symbol after the number.

I tried to look up the official rules but it's as if that game never existed. If the game was sold in stores as the article says then the web site should still have instructions for redeeming winning tickets even if the game was terminated. Has anyone found any evidence that the whole story is not a spoof?
 
Soapy Sam said:
I disagree. "Higher" is a vague term and we have to define it precisely in context.
If what you mean is "Lies further to the right on a conventional number line", then yes, (-5) is "higher than" (-6) .
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"Higher" means greater than, "lower" means less than. There are no significant milestones - and that includes zero.

If what's meant is "Bigger" , then -6 is bigger than -5.
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Then apparently "bigger" could mean anything.

If you have $0 and spend $6 is your debt not bigger, higher, deeper or larger than if you spend $5?
When you measure debt along the number line a $6 debt is greater than a $5 debt. That's becuase we're using the number line to count units of debt.

Minus 6 is a larger quantity than minus 5, exactly as 6 is a larger quantity than 5.
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A debt of $6 is larger than a debt of $5. Minus five is still greater than minus six.

In the case of temperature, there should be no ambiguity, because temperature is a linear scale. -6 deg C is a lower temperature than -5 deg C, but the M.E.N article does not say that, it simply says "-5 is higher than -6" and the meaning of that phrase depends on context.
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Only, apparently, with the introduction of "bigger" to obfuscate matters.
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Dan O. said:
The example scratch card in the article clearly shows the degree symbol after the number.

I tried to look up the official rules but it's as if that game never existed. If the game was sold in stores as the article says then the web site should still have instructions for redeeming winning tickets even if the game was terminated. Has anyone found any evidence that the whole story is not a spoof?
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Scratch-cards are an immediate pay-out bet, as I understand it. A particularly insidious form of gambling.
 
Dan O. said:
The example scratch card in the article clearly shows the degree symbol after the number.

I tried to look up the official rules but it's as if that game never existed. If the game was sold in stores as the article says then the web site should still have instructions for redeeming winning tickets even if the game was terminated. Has anyone found any evidence that the whole story is not a spoof?
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There's a photograph of the ticket. Also, since when is proving a negative the thing to do? Get some proof that it is a spoof, first.

There's no reason to think this is a spoof. It's possible that the customer quote is made up, simply because that is common practice, but it's quite unlikely that the Manchester Evening News is carrying a potentially libelous story about Camelot, with quotes from them, without the game even existing.

If it bothers you that much, check the website to see if every other withdrawn or finished 'instant' game is listed there. There are hundreds of them, as well as the current crop. If those are there then it's telling that this game isn't mentioned. However, that's still not evidence it's a spoof.

The Mirror is carrying the same story.
 
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Many people have similar difficulty grasping AD/BC dates. A few days ago I had to explain to my neighbour that 2BC was more recent than 20BC.
 
I was going to invent a lottery scratchcard game involving complex numbers. However, normal lottery scratchcard players would proberly have a heartattack.

Strange, I thought the people who played lottery scratchcard games watch weather reports. England is cold, I wonder what they thought when you had a temperture below zero.
 
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tkingdoll said:
There's a photograph of the ticket. Also, since when is proving a negative the thing to do? Get some proof that it is a spoof, first.
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Is it a photo or a photoshop? I was looking for positive proof. That is why I went to the UK National Lottery web site. There is no evidence of the game except in the one news story. In all the other stories I found through searching the web, the only information on the game is referenced to that original news story.

There's no reason to think this is a spoof. It's possible that the customer quote is made up, simply because that is common practice, but it's quite unlikely that the Manchester Evening News is carrying a potentially libelous story about Camelot, with quotes from them, without the game even existing.
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Since when is it necessary to prove a negative? There is no proof that the story is real. I'm looking for further information to answer questions in this thread, a higher resolution image, the official rules for that game, etc..

If it bothers you that much, check the website to see if every other withdrawn or finished 'instant' game is listed there. There are hundreds of them, as well as the current crop. If those are there then it's telling that this game isn't mentioned. However, that's still not evidence it's a spoof.
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I did check the web site. There is a listing for closed games. They are required to list all games for 180 days after they are closed because winning tickets can still be redeemed through that period.

Are we to believe everything that is printed if we cannot personally prove it false?


The Mirror is carrying the same story.
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Is it a reflection of the original story? They did offer an original quote but as you said, they sometimes make up these quotes.
 
becomingagodo said:
I was going to invent a lottery scratchcard game involving complex numbers. However, normal lottery scratchcard players would proberly have a heartattack.
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Not long ago, I ran a simulation of betting with imaginary cash :)

After trying a particularly bad betting strategy where you almost always loose almost all of your gambling stake, I tried a simulation where I always bet an imaginary fraction of the current stake. My stake would spiral randomly right and left through the complex plain but slowly getting bigger.
 
It is possible that it doesnt appear to be mentioned on the Camelot site if they did indeed withdraw the game:

(reference on various links that mention the original story above)
 
While I would believe people are this mathematically illiterate in a heartbeat, looking at the scratch off card is telling. The "-" is small and in a different font. Blending in with the background, you might miss it, and if you didn't scratch off all the way, you might not see the "-" at all! If you were rushing through a bunch of these games, you might not see the not-so-subtle hints that you were looking at negative numbers.

I think this probably more the result of a combination of bad reading comprehension and a slightly confusing lottery game than it is bad math skills. The brain dead quote teek cited reads to me more like someone unwilling to admit they made a mistake (and maybe hoping to create a controversy and get some money) than someone confused about the underlying mathematics.
 
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