Lottery Lunacy

There is a big ad in the paper today about how I can buy lottery tickets on line. I am too lazy to go to the store, so of course this is appealing.

I sign up, it sends a confirmation e-mail and I click on the link to log in. But I can't do this. You have to have Location Services turned on in your cel phone -- to prove you are in BC, I guess.

I am totally clueless about all this, until I phone the lottery help line. Normally if you have to have Location Services turned on, the app or site (this was a mobile site) will tell you to do that in simple language. You have to have Safari's Location Services turned on, since that is the app the phone uses while doing all this. There is nothing to tell you about all this ahead of time.

Having done this, I can log in. I choose the lottery I want and then choose the numbers. I go to "purchase" the lottery ticket that I have created, and I can't do it. You have to have money in your "account" first and you cannot go back to the main screen without destroying everything you have done so far (again, there is nothing to warn you in advance this will happen).

So I do that. Once I get to the place where I can put $5 in my account, I enter the credit card information and try to pay for this princely sum. Can't do that, it says the credit card (which I used previously at the very beginning of all this to "verify" that I was old enough to do all this crap in the first place) is declined. I try this twice. Finally, I phone the credit card company. There is nothing wrong with the card, but the company won't let you use the card for "gambling" and "betting" sites. Another company's credit card has no such problems.

What a fucking hassle!