I WOULD like to share my good fortune with your readers so they may also share in it.

I recently found myself to be £400 a year better off because of a stroke of luck.

When the Lottery started all those years ago my wife and I, like many others, chose our numbers with a reason behind them, such as birthdays.

This cost us £1 a week each and of course when it went to Wednesdays too it climbed to £2 a week.

Then they doubled the cost and we were paying £4 a week each, but then we had a lucky break.

They added 10 new numbers and changed the odds, so I am led to believe, from 14 million to one, to 45 million to one of winning the top prize, which means I would have to buy tickets for the next 200,000 years to win the top prize.

I then had a brainwave: why not stop being an idiot and save myself £400 a year tax free.

This way I win all the time. This amount will buy me and the wife a number of good nights out or a short holiday somewhere.

So I have to say thank you to the Lottery people for making this possible and wonder how many others have done the same thing.

I have not read anything in the papers about how well this new arrangement is going, so if they are not shouting about it perhaps I am not alone.

R CARTWRIGHT Covingham, Swindon