Lottery operator Camelot has been forced to withdraw a scratchcard because players were too innumerate to understand it, according to the Manchester Evening News.
The Cool Cash game - launched on Monday - was taken out of shops yesterday after some players failed to grasp whether or not they had won.To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.
But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some. Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.
The story quotes player Tina Farrell, 23:
I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it.I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn't say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.
It's slightly alarming to learn the average person on the street has difficulties with something as simple as negative numbers, though with 15.1m with poor numeracy perhaps Camelot is at fault for making it too complicated.
But it's not as if the scratchcard's asking you about standard deviation, or, heaven help us, quadratic equations. Surely something's wrong here?
[via Chicken Yoghurt]
