There are lotteries all over the world with huge prizes being won every day. In the UK where I play the odd time, I have only ever won a tenner, but often wonder if my combination of numbers would have won many millions, if only I had played them in Panama on the 13th September 2003.

"I Could Have Been A Millionaire" solves this question by allowing you to enter any set of lottery numbers into an online data base which searches through the global results of every lottery result with an excess of a million that took place over the last 30 years.

If you turn out to have been a winner (if only you had played these exact numbers in Melbourne three years ago), you are presented with the opportunity to purchase a nice certificate verfiying your non-winning bad luck.
-- xenzag, Jul 02 2017

Could it, for a modest additional charge, calculate with the aid of actuarial tables the exact opportunity costs of all the activities which led to your being in neither Melbourne nor Panama when you *should* have been, by rights? [+]
-- pertinax, Jul 02 2017


Better yet, charge users 10p to check their numbers. The income is put into a pot from which consolation prizes are given to those people who were winners in the wrong country.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 02 2017


For the biggest prize for the person slapping one's forehead and yelping, "Oh shit" the loudest.
-- blissmiss, Jul 02 2017


// the biggest prize for the person slapping one's forehead and yelping, "Oh shit" the loudest//

That would be a dead heat between David Cameron and Theresa May.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 17 2019


I'd like the lottery to issue certificates saying "You *could* have been a winner, if you'd selected a completely different set of numbers"
-- hippo, May 17 2019


Suicide Numbers. This is a thing. Pick them and watch the result without buying a ticket. I do it every week to feel smug. Hasn't failed (in smugness terms) yet, but... it could be me, apparently.
-- notripe, May 19 2019



random, halfbakery