IMAGINE the mental roller-coaster ride - from the heights of joy to the depths of gloom. One minute, you're a big-money lottery winner; the next, you find out you're not.

It's the awful experience an East Lancashire pub lottery syndicate shared when their numbers came up and then found out they had no ticket - because a member forgot to put the money on.

Lesson: Syndicates are popular - they are fun and increase your chances of winning. But make sure they are run on strict written-down rules, with the job of collecting and putting on the stake money clearly allocated.

For as we see, the casual approach can cost you a fortune.

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Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.