“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest number of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.” So said Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister to Louis XIV of France. By that measure, the UK’s National Lottery is one of the greatest taxes ever devised. It is a voluntary tax which the public love to pay because everyone thinks they can be a winner.

Most of the money the lottery raises goes on social services, church roofs, heritage sites and public football pitches. According to critics, lottery money supports services that should be paid for from general taxation. It subsidises the leisure habits of the rich from the gambling habits of the poor. It pays to train elite athletes. For enemies of the lottery, this is just one of the areas best left to the private sector to bear the cost. Yet the UK’s Olympic success shows you can, literally, buy gold medals.