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•26 The 100 Greatest Business Ideas of All Time

Here comes the twist

1 The chance of winning the jackpot is approximately 14 million to one. If you
do the lottery, stop it at once.

2 Money invested in a premium bond also has only a remote chance of landing
a big win. The chances of winning anything are 15,000 to one for each bond
you hold. The interest paid on bonds is about 5% so that, in theory, is what
you should earn over the long term if you have a fairly extensive holding. But
at the end of the day at least the Government has the grace to give you your
pound back, some of which you might care to give directly to charity.

‘If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, ’tis no matter what
they think; they are sometimes in the right. Sometimes in the wrong: their judge-
ment is a mere lottery.’

John Dryden (1631–1700)

Idea 21 – Make my product illegal, please

Regulatory interference in a market can sometimes have the opposite effect from
that intended. Such interference can be on the supply side or the demand side.
Nowhere did the effect of regulation have such an enormous impact on social as
well as business life than in the USA when the Volstead Act (Volstead was the
congressman who promoted it) was passed in 1919. This prohibited the manufac-
ture and distribution of alcoholic beverages.

The regulation obviously hit at the supply side, but the demand for alcohol hardly
changed. The simple result of this is that the price of alcohol went shooting up, and
‘bootleggers’ ensured that the manufacture and sale of the illegal liquor was widespread.