Gareth Hughes

@gh230277

Thank you for our compensation payment @Northpowergrid for the several days we were without power following #stormarwen Before I bank the cheque however, are you 100% certain you can afford this? #trillionpounds pic.x.com/z5MNc2Nxl1

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I wondered whether 2324252080110 was a common sort of mistake - like a 32 bit overflow - so I Googled the number:

Huh! It is rare that a search doesn't provide any results. A search for a similar number gives one result - albeit a spam page

Type in any random number and there's usually something - even if it's just a glitch result.

Every integer under a billion seems to be there (I didn't check exhaustively) - but once you get into the trillions, they become a lot less likely to appear. See:

Of course, by writing 2230101000000 on this page, it will eventually find its way into Google all-seeing index - the original number I searched for now leads to page full of results linking to news stories. It's a little like the interesting number paradox.

If you find a lower positive integer, with no results, please let me know!

I knew a few people who got cheques from these services - most prominently, AllAdvantage. The schemes always had the faint whiff of a scam. The unrealistic targets, the easy to bypass monitoring software, the shady companies who popped up and then disappeared within the space of a few weeks.

The web, so it would seem, rejected being paid for being an advertiser's target.

SearchLotto

So, along comes SearchLotto, with a slightly different proposition. Get paid for Googleing! Not only that, get paid MILLIONS for Googleing.

The Headline

SearchLotto will buy you National Lottery tickets for doing searches through them! Become a millionaire just for switching search provider.

All searches are provided by Google - so you're still getting the quality search results you know and love.

The Reality

Based on their FAQ.

• Perform 25 searches per week, to get a ticket.
• No more than 10 searches per day will count.
• Your ticket enters you into a syndicate with 9 other people. So you'll have to split your winnings 10 ways.
• Max of two tickets per week.

The Analysis

If you did 10 "verified" searches every week day, you'd end up with 2 tickets for different syndicates. Net value to you £0.20p. That's right, 50 searches will earn you 20 pence. So, about 0.4p for every search you do.

SearchLotto are probably relying on people "over searching". That is, if you perform 100 searches a week through them, their cost is 0.2p per search.

Based on this, they can probably afford to stay in business. Participants are likely to switch to them as their permanent search provider in order to get the maximum of two tickets.

The Statistics

The jackpot for the Saturday Lotto draw usually ranges between £4 million and £8 million. Even at the lower end, sharing the £4m with 9 other people nets you a healthy £400,000.

But, of course, other people can hold winning tickets.

Let's take a look at how much you could gain. Based on the 18/09/2010 draw.

Because your syndicate shares the jackpot with all the other winning ticket holders, you would get £2.4m / 3 / 10.

So, £81k is certainly nothing to sneeze at - but it won't make you a millionaire over night.

Conclusion

You're not losing anything by switching to SearchLotto because the search results are returned by Google. You do have to give them your name, address, and date-of-birth (to ensure you're legally able to buy tickets). You can get paid by PayPal or bank transfer. You can read their (fairly easy to digest) Privacy Policy.

I don't think it's a scam. The odds are so long that they may never have to pay out anything to anyone. I suspect that if they ever do get a jackpot ticket, they'll plaster the UK with press releases bringing further legitimacy.

I'm game. I'll give it a few weeks, see if I actually get any tickets and - hopefully - winnings.

The Disclaimer

All links to SearchLotto are affiliate links. If you sign up, I get credits towards a Lottery ticket.

Tickets Update

After completing 50 searches and referring 1 more user, I've got the following numbers for the Lotto draw on 2nd October.

2 7 9 11 12 32

9 18 20 21 32 33

2 17 25 26 30 47

I think this is the first time I've had a Lottery ticket in around 10 years. Strangely, I feel quite excited... But, I guess that's why they call it the stupidity tax!