How often do you buy a lottery ticket?

[ironman2000]

How many of you today still buy lottery tickets and do other countries lotteries tempt you to buy into high Jackpot payouts?

[thebookiesoffers]

do the UK lottery every week and the Euro one whenever the jackpot starts getting big

[LukeC]

Only Euromillions when it's a monster jackpot.

[thebookiesoffers]

Only Euromillions when it's a monster jackpot.

have you done what we do in the pub, "shall we all do the euro millions this week?"

"no, it's only £20m this week, not worth it"

Like we'd really turn our noses up at 20m lol

[LukeC]

have you done what we do in the pub, "shall we all do the euro millions this week?"

"no, it's only £20m this week, not worth it"

Like we'd really turn our noses up at 20m lol

When it's my turn to win I'd rather it be £150m!

[baldidiot]

Very rarely. We may stick a couple of quid in this fridays euromillions because of the 100 x £1m raffle they're doing though...

[TheGooner]

I buy the weekly "meat raffle" at the local football club - haven't won in over three years!


As for the major lotteries, my partner buys a ticket when the jackpot gets to "must go" stages (perhaps once a year) ... as the potential payback usually means that buying is actually a +EV bet ...

But we both understand that the chances are extremely close to zero ...

[edgarf76]

I Voted never. I always thought it was a gamble rather than a calculated risk. I do not like that at all. I had a friend that won 20k he was super excited. I didnt want to burst his bubble so I waited a few days and in converstation casually asked him how much he thought he spent in his life in lotto. He said at least 20k. Not a smart play unless you truly are doing it for the entertainment not for the money,

[Renee]

I only buy when the jackpots are in the double digit millions.

My aunty has to be the luckiest woman alive. She has won 1st division 3 times, however it always happens to be on the huge ones where everyone like me buys a ticket just in case they win. She won first division on a 21 million jackpot and only got 45k out of it :/

[SLIM]

Fella i know won 10 million on the euromillions, 1st purchase was a Ferrari. I figure no 2 people from the same area will win an amount that big so i never do it anymore

[slotplayer]

coming up on 1 year next month since I bought a scratch ticket. I do buy one or two of the mega games when their in the 300$ million + range.

[Maria F]

I have never bought a lottery ticket!

[p.arena]

When they have the huge prizes $20mil+ I'll sometimes buy a ticket.

It's fun thinking about what you'd do with all that money if you actually won

[ironman2000]

Thanks for all the interesting replies to my question and I see repeated that many of you only buy a ticket when the jackpot is high!!!!!

To be honest with you all this is not the best time to buy as your possibilities of winner go up tenfold and I would always buy a ticket when the jackpot is low................that's if you think low is GBP 5 Million.

Question: I also see that many of you buy individual tickets and not to buy into a group or alliance to greater increase your chances of winning. Would it not be a wiser choice if your tempting your destiny to join forces with others in a group?

Have a awesome weekend to you all and opportunity they say knocks for most only once in a lifetime, so keep your eye's open and answer every knock on the door!!!

[-Shay-]

Keith,

Why would the possibilities of being a winner go up when the jackpot is low? I'd think that the possibility of winning would remain static and that the size of the "prize pool" would determine whether you were +EV or -EV (despite long odds regardless of size of the grand prize). Am I correct in concluding that what you actually mean is that the possibility of being the lone winner (of the big prize) goes up when jackpots are lower?

Cheers

[ironman2000]

The possibilities raise dramatically when the Jackpot is low because of the volume of people who but a ticket........................once the Jackpot starts to jump to a crazy sum the volume of people who decide to buy a ticket also reaches unbelievable levels, which then your odds of winning alone or in a group are far less!!!!

That's also why people in the USA buy into the Canadian Lottery because of the volume of people and the odds of winning become far better than in the USA!!!!

If I buy a ticket today its only in an alliance to greater increase my odds of been on a winning team.

Have a great weekend and as they say you have to be in it to win it mate!!!!!

[robertmedl]

Only when it gets to $100M USD -- MegaMillions, Powerball.

[LukeC]

Your overall EV would be higher the closer the jackpot gets to it's cap, because of the dead money in the pool. The dead money is the only way that you could get a +EV playing the lottery. Even then, you are reliant on an assumption that other people don't have the same numbers as you, which is quite unlikely. At least, that's based on my knowledge of UK lottery / Euromillions where a huge chunk is taken out of each ticket sale and doesn't go into the pool. Of course, if it hits the cap, and more money goes in, then your EV goes down, because the chance of another ticket matching yours increases for no increased potential return.

The chance of no-one winning the jackpot is irrelevant as you're only interested in winning yourself. Makes no difference if there are 0 or 1000 winners if none of them are you! The same for anybody doing the maths, isn't interested in the potential chance of winning, but the potential financial implications (EV).

However, if you are playing the lottery expecting to come out on top as a financial investment in any case, it's a dumb move, because you'd need to have such a huge bankroll to account for the variance, you couldn't play enough lottery draws to have a realistic chance of hitting a win, and the risk/reward wouldn't be worth it. Much better to have a few pounds in when it's a huge jackpot and get the enjoyment out of working out how to spend your money!

That said, this forum probably isn't the best place to do this kind of market research, seeing as the vast majority of the people here are savvy about how the gambling industry works and the mathematics behind it. It's about the entertainment value, and the higher potential return makes it more exciting!

[Sergej_AGR]

Only Euromillions when it's a monster jackpot.

Same here. When Euromillions jackpot is 90 millions and more I cant resist to buy a ticket. And a few weeks ago when the Jackpot was ~140 millions I really won. - I won 7 Euro.

[Rostick]

never ever