The Secret to Increasing Your Odds with Lotteries...and Making Big Money

It is no secret that the Powerball Lottery grand prize ballooned to an unbelievable 590 million dollars! So how can YOU increase your odds with lotteries? It's very simple.....

Don’t play!! Posted directly on the Powerball website are your odds of winning the grand prize. I’ll save you the website search...it is 1 in 175,223,510. Yes, that is almost 1 in 200 million! I will spare you all the statistics about how the odds are better that you will get struck by lightning 5 times while sitting in your bathtub drying your hair. Your brain can figure out 1 in 200 million are absolutely impossible odds.

So, how do you make big money? Rather than purchasing lottery tickets, invest that money. You would be surprised at how that money can add up. Let’s say you spend $10 per week on lottery tickets (believe it or not, that is not unusual at all). If you instead invested that in a mutual fund that averages 8% annual rate of return (the S&P 500 has a 9.75% annualized return over the past 100 years), you would have over $130,000 in 40 years. $130,000 is a lot of money. The odds of that happening are almost guaranteed!

Now let’s dream together for a minute. Let’s say you won the lottery. Picture your life. Would your life now be complete? Would you suddenly be “happy”? Picture the cars, the jewelry, the vacations, and all the other nice stuff you could now buy. You could even buy all that for your friends! But slow down. Statistics show the majority of lottery winners end up bankrupt. Not just financially, but also relationally. Friendships change. Family relationships change. The dynamics with all of those closest to you has now been forever changed by your new found fortune. Enter jealousy. Enter expectations. You can never go back.

Anybody who knows me knows I often quote my grandpa. He has been a source of a lot of wisdom in my life. Regarding lotteries and gambling, here is what my grandpa says: “Gambled money has no home.” In other words, even if you win initially...you will eventually lose (like all those lottery winners who end up bankrupt). There is a reason Las Vegas has massive, amazing buildings...even in this economy. They always win! That is because their odds aren’t 1 in 175,000,000...their odds are instead almost guaranteed!

Do you play the lottery? Have you ever won more than $100?