What alternatives are there to the UK National Lottery?
Discussion
Bearing in mind that the odds of winning the UK National Lottery 'Lotto' have been just lengthened to over 45,000,000 to one or thereabouts, I just wonder what are the alternatives offering better odds and more realistic winnings.
Being quite honest now I would be quite happy with winning a quarter or perhaps half a million pounds, and thinking deeper, even £50,000 or £100,000 would have a massive impact on my lifestyle.
The National Lottery winnings of over £50 million pounds is surely too large a number for most people to deal with.
I was rather hoping the last rollover would result in over 100 winners claiming £500,000 but instead it resulted in just two winners putting in their claims for £33,000,000 each.
I personally rarely buy a lottery ticket and prefer to buy Premium Bonds, but unfortunately the minimum purchase has been raised to £100 and the odds lengthened, probably by some political jobsworth, so they are no longer as competitive, though at least you don't lose your stake except by inflation that constantly nibbles away at your money.
So my question is what alternatives are available to UK citizens to the National Lottery, that offer better odds, and provide more reasonable prize winnings?
Being quite honest now I would be quite happy with winning a quarter or perhaps half a million pounds, and thinking deeper, even £50,000 or £100,000 would have a massive impact on my lifestyle.
The National Lottery winnings of over £50 million pounds is surely too large a number for most people to deal with.
I was rather hoping the last rollover would result in over 100 winners claiming £500,000 but instead it resulted in just two winners putting in their claims for £33,000,000 each.
I personally rarely buy a lottery ticket and prefer to buy Premium Bonds, but unfortunately the minimum purchase has been raised to £100 and the odds lengthened, probably by some political jobsworth, so they are no longer as competitive, though at least you don't lose your stake except by inflation that constantly nibbles away at your money.
So my question is what alternatives are available to UK citizens to the National Lottery, that offer better odds, and provide more reasonable prize winnings?
Edited by rich888 on Monday 11th January 02:16
I've seen adverts for this site.. https://www.lottoland.co.uk
We are at $1.3billion this week for USA Mega millions..
£895 million isn't to be sniffed at.
I'm not sure how foreign taxes are calculated though.
We are at $1.3billion this week for USA Mega millions..
£895 million isn't to be sniffed at.
I'm not sure how foreign taxes are calculated though.
rich888 said:
Bearing in mind that the odds of winning the UK National Lottery 'Lotto' have been just lengthened to over 45,000,000 to one or thereabouts
They haven't "just" been lengthened. They lengthened last October.There's a very simple way to make a material difference to your personal wealth through the national lottery - and it's guaranteed.
Every Wednesday and every Saturday, take your £2, and put it in the bank. By the end of the year, you'll have £104. If you were ever tempted to buy more than one ticket, put in another £2 for each ticket you were tempted to buy. If you were ever tempted to buy scratchcards or the Health Lottery or any other similar scheme, put that money in, too.
You might not ever become a multi-millionaire via this route, sure. But let's face it - your odds aren't very much different by buying the damn ticket.
Perhaps Kinky would like to comment on this thread...?
It won't be you.
State lotteries are a known and proven mechanism to extract money from the poorest (largest demographic) in a society. Think of it as a gap fill mechanism to make up for the cash economy at that level.
The average lotto participant will pay more in lottery tickets than they do in income tax. It's partly why State lotteries have always been popular in backward, mostly poor, tax evading economies such as the southern Med or South America etc.
They are the State sponsored equivalent of KFC and William Hill. Designed to remove cash from the pockets of those who should most be holding onto that cash.
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/p...
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/british%2...
Janet from Hounslow doesn't really want to give money she cannot afford to give away to the Government to finance the English National Opera. She should listen to 2CV and put that money in the bank. She wouldn't then have to use debt each Christmas. If her parents, husband, siblings and children also halted then that would mean a huge sum of wealth retained within the family unit each year.
Of course, there is the valid argument that such people would just find something else to spend their money on if the lottery didn't exist but that doesn't excuse the State from doing what it has done.
Personally, the Lotto is one of New Labours insane attacks on the poor. A known mechanism that targets the weakest. It should be shut down and all funding revert to being derived from income tax where those who can afford to fund such social projects can do so.
State lotteries are a known and proven mechanism to extract money from the poorest (largest demographic) in a society. Think of it as a gap fill mechanism to make up for the cash economy at that level.
The average lotto participant will pay more in lottery tickets than they do in income tax. It's partly why State lotteries have always been popular in backward, mostly poor, tax evading economies such as the southern Med or South America etc.
They are the State sponsored equivalent of KFC and William Hill. Designed to remove cash from the pockets of those who should most be holding onto that cash.
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/p...
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/british%2...
Janet from Hounslow doesn't really want to give money she cannot afford to give away to the Government to finance the English National Opera. She should listen to 2CV and put that money in the bank. She wouldn't then have to use debt each Christmas. If her parents, husband, siblings and children also halted then that would mean a huge sum of wealth retained within the family unit each year.
Of course, there is the valid argument that such people would just find something else to spend their money on if the lottery didn't exist but that doesn't excuse the State from doing what it has done.
Personally, the Lotto is one of New Labours insane attacks on the poor. A known mechanism that targets the weakest. It should be shut down and all funding revert to being derived from income tax where those who can afford to fund such social projects can do so.
TooMany2cvs said:
They haven't "just" been lengthened. They lengthened last October.
There's a very simple way to make a material difference to your personal wealth through the national lottery - and it's guaranteed.
Every Wednesday and every Saturday, take your £2, and put it in the bank. By the end of the year, you'll have £104. If you were ever tempted to buy more than one ticket, put in another £2 for each ticket you were tempted to buy. If you were ever tempted to buy scratchcards or the Health Lottery or any other similar scheme, put that money in, too.
You might not ever become a multi-millionaire via this route, sure. But let's face it - your odds aren't very much different by buying the damn ticket.
Perhaps Kinky would like to comment on this thread...?
Isn't that £4 per week so actually £208 per year?There's a very simple way to make a material difference to your personal wealth through the national lottery - and it's guaranteed.
Every Wednesday and every Saturday, take your £2, and put it in the bank. By the end of the year, you'll have £104. If you were ever tempted to buy more than one ticket, put in another £2 for each ticket you were tempted to buy. If you were ever tempted to buy scratchcards or the Health Lottery or any other similar scheme, put that money in, too.
You might not ever become a multi-millionaire via this route, sure. But let's face it - your odds aren't very much different by buying the damn ticket.
Perhaps Kinky would like to comment on this thread...?
I suspect doing that for a few years is a better investment than lottery tickets
rich888 said:
So my question is what alternatives are available to UK citizens to the National Lottery, that offer better odds, and provide more reasonable prize winnings?
Take your £2 lottery money to your local casino, stick it on red.Win 19 times in a row, you will win just over £1M
and the odds would be 524,000 to 1, much better than the lottery
(warning - Monday morning maths)
rich888 said:
I personally ... prefer to buy Premium Bonds, but unfortunately the minimum purchase has been raised to £100 and the odds lengthened, probably by some political jobsworth, so they are no longer as competitive, though at least you don't lose your stake except by inflation that constantly nibbles away at your money.
Just noticed this bit in the original.Don't forget that there's a rough "rate of return" for premium bonds. Yes, that recently got cut - from 1.5% to 1.35%. Oooh. Still better than many savings accounts, slightly. But - of course - that's skewed by the chance of a large prize, so the average bondholder will get less. Put a grand in for one year, the average return is the same as it used to be. Zero. Put ten grand in for five years, the average return will be £500... But, of course, that's tax free.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-b...
Or you could put it into an instant access cash ISA, and get 1.5% tax free. Or if you're happy to lock it away for five years, you could get 2.5% in an ISA or just over 3% outside an ISA. Remember - from April, the first grand of interest a year will be tax-free anyway if you're a standard tax payer, or £500 if you're higher-rate.
Cheers guys and some great comments about alternatives to the Lotto, especially the casino idea, though surely there is a lottery out there that offers better odds than 45 million to one?
Does anyone do the football pools any more or did that system pack up years ago because I haven't done the pools since the 1980s!
I'm not interested in investing in a banking ISA because the rates are pathetically low and earning £15 per year on a £1000 investment isn't really going to make a great deal of difference to me, plus the bank might go bust!
Premium bonds offer a poor return for many, but at least quite a few people do win moderate and larger sums of money from time to time, I won £500 a few months ago so am well chuffed considering I hold very few bonds, and whilst inflation remains low my actual stake so to speak isn't getting eroded away too quickly, and I don't actually lose my initial stake like I would with a lottery ticket.
There are plenty of ways to invest money that pay far more than the above, but they can be risky, classic cars have been terrific over the past few years, but as ever, what goes up eventually comes down, and the same goes for the housing market.
What I don't understand is why a lottery can't be set up with lower prizes (£500, £1000, £10,000, £50,000, £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, £1,000,000) paid out to more people due to better odds of winning, and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes', define good cause for goodness sake, is my hankering for a Lamborghini or a beach house considered as a good cause?
As for my £2, it rarely if ever is spent on the National Lotto, I'm not wasting my money every week buying a ticket whilst the odds of winning remain so shockingly low!
Does anyone do the football pools any more or did that system pack up years ago because I haven't done the pools since the 1980s!
I'm not interested in investing in a banking ISA because the rates are pathetically low and earning £15 per year on a £1000 investment isn't really going to make a great deal of difference to me, plus the bank might go bust!
Premium bonds offer a poor return for many, but at least quite a few people do win moderate and larger sums of money from time to time, I won £500 a few months ago so am well chuffed considering I hold very few bonds, and whilst inflation remains low my actual stake so to speak isn't getting eroded away too quickly, and I don't actually lose my initial stake like I would with a lottery ticket.
There are plenty of ways to invest money that pay far more than the above, but they can be risky, classic cars have been terrific over the past few years, but as ever, what goes up eventually comes down, and the same goes for the housing market.
What I don't understand is why a lottery can't be set up with lower prizes (£500, £1000, £10,000, £50,000, £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, £1,000,000) paid out to more people due to better odds of winning, and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes', define good cause for goodness sake, is my hankering for a Lamborghini or a beach house considered as a good cause?
As for my £2, it rarely if ever is spent on the National Lotto, I'm not wasting my money every week buying a ticket whilst the odds of winning remain so shockingly low!
rich888 said:
and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes', define good cause for goodness sake, is my hankering for a Lamborghini or a beach house considered as a good cause?
50% is prize money28% goes to charity fund, along with all unclaimed prizes
12% goes to the government as tax
5% to ticket sellers
5% goes to lottery organiser, approximately 0.5% is profit after costs
so 1p of the £2 is "creamed off by management"
Edited by Adam B on Monday 11th January 11:13
rich888 said:
I'm not interested in investing in a banking ISA because the rates are pathetically low
They're twice as high as the expected rate of return (higher than the average) of the premium bonds you prefer.rich888 said:
Premium bonds offer a poor return for many, but at least quite a few people do win moderate and larger sums of money from time to time, I won £500 a few months ago so am well chuffed considering I hold very few bonds
So how much do you own, how long have you owned them, and have you figured out the real return you've had? The XIRR function on a spreadsheet is a good way of doing so.rich888 said:
What I don't understand is why a lottery can't be set up with lower prizes (£500, £1000, £10,000, £50,000, £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, £1,000,000) paid out to more people due to better odds of winning, and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes'
Simple. Because that doesn't encourage people to bet on the lottery - and, yes, it IS a bet.Look at the total prize fund compared to the total ticket sales. They can only ever be lower, because there are always going to be administrative costs involved. The whole raison d'etre of the National Lottery is to raise money for charities - "good causes". If you don't agree with that, then bet elsewhere. If you want to know what they are, http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/good-causes - if you think your Lambo dream qualifies, then apply for a lottery grant. In the vanishingly unlikely event you are accepted, then you'll probably have to fundraise to match the lottery grant.
So if the money coming out is inevitably less than the money going in, there is never ever ever going to be a positive rate of return. Unless, of course, you think you're luckier than average. Which is a bet, is it not?
Adam B said:
rich888 said:
and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes', define good cause for goodness sake, is my hankering for a Lamborghini or a beach house considered as a good cause?
50% is prize money28% goes to charity fund, along with all unclaimed prizes
12% goes to the government as tax
5% to ticket sellers
5% goes to lottery organiser, approximately 0.5% is profit after costs
so 1p of the £2 is "creamed off by management"
If you went into Dragons Den and told the dragons you'd have a 20 year business, and you will get 1% profit for those 20 years, you'd be laughed out of the building.
Don1 said:
Adam B said:
rich888 said:
and with less creamed off by the management and diverted to their 'good causes', define good cause for goodness sake, is my hankering for a Lamborghini or a beach house considered as a good cause?
50% is prize money28% goes to charity fund, along with all unclaimed prizes
12% goes to the government as tax
5% to ticket sellers
5% goes to lottery organiser, approximately 0.5% is profit after costs
so 1p of the £2 is "creamed off by management"
If you went into Dragons Den and told the dragons you'd have a 20 year business, and you will get 1% profit for those 20 years, you'd be laughed out of the building.
Shut down the lottery and the charities would simply revert to the pre-lottery state of being tax payer supplemented. The 28% 'donated' to charities isn't new money into the charity system it is simply the same money but levied from the poorest instead of the wealthiest via direct taxation.
And I suspect that stats for how people 'spend' their 50% re-distributions are remarkably similar to the re-distributions from high street bookmakers. Ie mostly thrown back into the betting pool and lost or thrown at very high taxation goods such as alcohol.
At its absolute crudest a state lottery is a tool to tax the majority poor and to artificially bridge a poverty divide. There is no great surprise that state lotteries are most popular either where there is a massive wealth divide or where the poor majority do not pay income tax or an oversized black economy exists.
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