ABOUT-TURN: How My Training Move Will Change Your Lottery Effectiveness

I'm going to do an about-turn on something. Just like the time when I was enrolled in our country's air force over 4 decades ago.

We were taught to march - drill it was called. And I hated every minute if it. I simply wasn't born to take orders from anyone - even at that young age. But I had to comply.

Our group of recruits were training on the concrete floor in a cold, deserted hangar. And we were facing the back wall.

We drilled. In our untidy rows we shuffled about, stepped back and forward, moved from side to side, all the time responding to our sergeant's barked orders.

Then came the liberating move that changed my life.

We were taught how to do an 'about turn.'

And the first, shaky time we performed that move, it brought a lump to my throat.

Because that move turned us 180 degrees to face the open hangar doors... away from the sterile, blank prison-like wall... and pointing out to freedom.

For the first time in that drill hour we saw the green horizon of the airfield with its neat line of aircraft. The blue sky with puffy white clouds. People marching past.

A completely different picture from the dank, bleak wall we had been forced to look at.

All it took was a change in direction, and my view of the world changed with it.

So here's my about-turn for you...

Over the years I've been calling your game's ticket cost an 'investment.'

Every ticket you pay for has the potential to multiply itself vastly, many millions of times. It is indeed an investment beyond all others.

But some people see it differently. They see their money swallowed up by the lotto store till, and consider it a loss when the prize doesn't beat it.

"Hey, that's not an investment," they remind me. "I lost money that week."

They think they have made a loss. But a loss it is NOT. Because in life you pay for all kinds of stuff you never see again.

Games of all kinds... football and baseball games. And road and bridge tolls, theater shows, memberships. Anything that charges a fee for its use.

You are paying for the privilege of entry and use.

And it is called an entry fee. Without the entry fee, you can't take part. You are locked out.

And that is exactly what a lottery ticket is... an entry fee to allow you to tap into incredible wealth. Without it, you're not even going to get a look at a red cent.

You need to pay the entry fee.

So I'm making an about-turn on the description. I'm changing every past description of ticket 'investment'... to 'entry fee.'

If you think of your ticket purchase as a fee to allow you entry to get hold of amazing riches - then you have done an about-turn with me.