News stories about veterans winning the lottery can make us all dream of winning, imagining how we’d spend the money. Then, with daydreams of world cruises and paying back student loans, we head down to the local convenience store to pick up a lottery ticket. However, don’t get too hopeful while playing the lottery. As many already know, its almost always a waste of money…
Winning The Lottery: Not An Easy Task
Terrible Odds – There’s one big reason to never play the lottery: the odds are awful! On the surface, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal: five bucks every so often doesn’t add up. However, the actual odds of winning the lottery are one in 302.6 million. That means you’d have to spend roughly $1.5 billion on tickets to win. Since a U.S. lottery jackpot has only hit $1.5 billion twice in the nation’s history, its simply a losing deal.
Taxes – So, let’s say you spend thousands, if not millions or billions, on winning the lottery. Unfortunately, you won’t receive all that grand jackpot, even if you win. Even after winning, quite a large portion of the prize will need to go to taxes. In the end, winners usually only receive 70% of the sum.
Addiction – Whether you sit at the poker table in the casino, bet on sports, or buy lottery tickets on the way home from work, it’s gambling. Gambling can become a massive problem if it grows into addiction; that’s when a person can’t think of anything else and spends all their money on gambling. Hard cases should be treated by a professional, especially if the person has previous addiction cases in their family. No doubt, gambling addiction can definitely be a tough thing to conquer and its one
Other Ways To Use The Money
Save It – Simply saving the money from lottery tickets is often the best option If you spend about five dollars of the ticket every week, that’s $260 every year, and $7,800 in 30 years (and you’d still be nowhere close to winning). With a decent savings account, that amount could gain around $2,000 or more of interest. Pretty good, huh?
Invest – Investing isn’t 100% safe either but it’s much better than gambling. There are also a lot of options to consider – stocks, property, gold, cryptocurrency, and the list goes on. With the extra money, one could possibly even hire a professional to help with their investments
Take Up A New Passion – Want to gain more money and change an addiction to a good habit? Find something else to enjoy, be it a hobby that can bring in some money, like DIY or freelance jobs like copywriting or photography.
Some Lottery Facts
As everyone must learn at one point or another, reality differs significantly from what we see on TV and the web. But the terrible odds haven’t stopped others from playing the lottery. In 1995, Americans spent $29.8 billion on lotto tickets. In 2016, the amount spent reached a whopping $72.7 billion! That’s almost a three-fold increase! The lottery is particularly prevalent in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Delaware.
Of course, we wish all these players luck! However, now that you know the odds and how to better spend your money, you’re much better off than those playing the lottery!
Sources: StashLearn, Finance101