Two simple techniques that will work regardless of your favourite lottery and whichever country you happen to live in.
I’ll explain how you can make it work for you at the end of the post, but first I want to talk about your chances of winning big time…
Your Chances
Not many people realise quite how unlikely it is that you’ll win the jackpot on the lottery, so I’m going to present a list of a few things that are more likely. For info, I’m basing these comparisons on a well known US lottery, but similar (although slightly better) odds apply to major UK and European lotteries.
Things that are more than 30 million times more likely than winning the jackpot
Statistically speaking, these are things that are reasonably likely.
1 : 2 Flipping heads on a single coin toss
1 : 4 Flipping heads twice in a row
1 : 6 Predicting the result of a single die roll
1 : 6 Rolling any double on a pair of dice
1 : 8 Flipping heads three times in a row
1 : 10 Being left handed
Things that are more than 3 million times more likely than winning the jackpot
These things aren’t that likely, but nevertheless they would probably happen around 3 million times before you win the jackpot..
1 : 33 Giving birth to twins (assuming you’re a pregnant woman!)
1 : 35 Predicting any single number on a roulette spin
1 : 36 Predicting and rolling a specific double on a pair of dice
1 : 36 Rolling a triple on three dice
1 : 64 Flipping heads six times in a row
1 : 84 The chance that you will die in a motor vehicle accident (obviously this one would only happen once!)
Things that are more than 300 thousand times more likely than winning the jackpot
Moving into things that are really pretty unlikely now.
1 : 250 Giving birth to identical twins (Again, men need not apply!)
1 : 500 Being born with 11 fingers or toes
1 : 512 Flipping heads nine times in a row
1 : 693 Drawing a full house in any single five card hand
1 : 837 Giving birth to triplets (Men, you know the score)
Things that are more than 30 thousand times more likely than winning the jackpot
These really are rare occurrences..
1 : 2,000 Fathering a child after a vasectomy
1 : 6,000 Tossing a coin that lands on its edge
1 : 8,192 Flipping heads 13 times in a row
1 : 9,400 Being shot and killed in the US
1 : 10,000 Picking a four leafed clover on your first try
Things that are more than 3 thousand times more likely than winning the jackpot
These ones are slightly grim, but don’t worry too much, the chances of them happening to you (or to anyone you know) are incredibly slim
1 : 12,000 Being struck by lightning at some stage in your life
1 : 18,000 Being murdered
1 : 65,536 Flipping heads 16 times in a row
1 : 75,000 Being killed in an asteroid impact that causes global devastation
1 : 80,000 Being killed in a volcanic eruption
Things that are more than 3 hundred times more likely than winning the jackpot
I really wouldn’t worry about these. You are extremely unlikely to know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone (etc) that these have happened to
1 : 300,000 Being killed by lightning
1 : 434,782 Being shot and killed in the UK
1 : 500,000 Giving birth to quadruplets
1 : 524,288 Flipping heads 19 times in a row
1 : 649,740 Drawing a royal flush in a single five card hand
1 : 662,000 Winning an Olympic gold medal
1 : 704,000 Being killed by a falling coconut
1 : 960,000 Being struck by lightning this year
1 : 1,000,000 Giving birth to identical triplets
1 : 1,000,000 Picking a five leafed clover on your first try
Things that are more than 30 times more likely than winning the jackpot
Just forget about it...
1 : 1,505,000 Being a movie star
1 : 1,600,000 Being killed by an isolated falling meteorite
1 : 8,388,608 Flipping heads 23 times in a row
Things that are more than 3 times more likely than winning the jackpot
Simply no way!
1 : 11,000,000 Being killed in a plane crash
1 : 13,200,000 Being an astronaut
1 : 55,000,000 Giving birth to quintuplets
1 : 67,108,864 Flipping heads 26 times in a row
Things that are more likely than winning the jackpot
Pffffthh…
1 : 144,000,000 Being struck by lightning twice in two separate incidents at some stage in your life
1 : 268,435,456 Flipping heads 27 times in a row
Ok – I confess that some of these odds may be a little inaccurate (they’ve been compiled from numerous different sources found on the net), and even the accurate ones could be misleading - for example the death stats are based on how many deaths are attributed to any given cause out of the sum of all deaths, and they aren’t any given person’s odds of dying in that way. For example, if you spend your entire life lying under a palm tree you’re far more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than an Inuit who never leaves the Arctic circle.
Anyway. drum roll…
The odds of winning the jackpot in a major US Lottery 1 : 292,201,338
For comparison the odds of winning in a major European lottery are 1 : 116,531,800, and in major UK lottery are 1 : 45,057,474. But the jackpot is likely to be significantly higher in the US one than the European one, which is also likely to be significantly higher than the UK one.
With the US lottery, if you bought one lottery ticket a week, you would have an even chance of taking the jackpot once every 5.6 million years. I hope all of this gives you an idea of how ridiculously unlikely it is. As they say, it could be you - but let’s face it - it won’t be. That’s why many people call the lottery a tax on the hopelessly optimistic!
Yeah yeah, I get the picture… But you said I could win $1,000s on the lottery! Spill the beans dammit!
There are in fact two methods:
The first way to have a much better chance of winning the jackpot is to buy more tickets. Let’s say you play the lottery every week of your life, and that you live to the age of 80. On this basis, you would have an even chance of winning at some stage in your life if you bought 70,240 tickets every week. At the time of writing, the tickets are $2 each, so you would need to invest roughly $140k every week. That’s the best way to massively increase your chances of getting that jackpot, but I’d guess it’s not the advice you were hoping for!
The fact is, nothing can help you beat the odds of winning with any single lottery ticket.
However, there is in fact a very reliable method of profiting from the lottery, which is the one I wanted to tell you all about.
Here it is:
Step 1: Just stop doing it! That’s right, keep your money! If you currently spend $10 a week, taking this approach you will win $520 a year, or $5,200 every decade. Definitely not to be sniffed at!
Step 2: Invest it in Steem, and power it up into Steem Power. That way you will benefit from compound interest, in the words of Albert Einstein, “the most powerful force in the universe”.
Assuming the Steem interest rate stabilizes at 12% as many have suggested, your $520 annual lottery winnings will be worth somewhere around $10,000 after 10 years, and as much as $40k after 20, $150k after 30 and around $520k after 40 years. Of course, many are predicting much higher rates of interest, and I've also ignored the likelihood of a potential rise in the value of Steem over the years, but I wanted to keep the predictions on the pessimistic side. There are many posts on Steem on possible interest rates and the likelihood of increases in the value of the currency, so as they say, do your own research. Above all, do the sensible thing and invest!
Hope this advice sets you all on your way to building your own fortunes! If you've enjoyed this post please up vote, comment, and share with your friends, and if it's successful maybe I'll do some more.
