A Brilliantly Simple Way To Win The Lottery?

Why don’t billionaires buy every single lottery ticket combination for big pots as an investment? (Image: savingadvice.com)

Winning the lottery is a dream for most people, but if people have enough money, then it has been proven that they can buy enough tickets to cover every possible outcome and make a profit. So why don’t billionaires buy every ticket combination for big pots as part of an investment?

What If?

It is essentially an ingenious scheme at first glance. To use the most recent Powerball lottery in the United States as an example, there were 292 million potential winning combinations, but the winning jackpot amount was valued at $1.3 billion. If you had enough money then why not buy enough tickets to cover each combination and then you would be guaranteed to earn a profit of over $500 million right?

Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple. There are a range of factors to take into account as to why billionaires do not just buy every winning ticket combination and guarantee a win on the lottery as a form of investment.

Splitting the Jackpot

Here is the main reason why the risk of trying this is too large for the amount you need to invest and the amount you could potentially win. All it takes is for one other person that is playing the game to hit the same winning ticket as you and the winnings are immediately split in two. That single outcome would see you earn a loss.

The chances of someone else winning the jackpot prize are very high and if you are considering that the amount invested into this process will exceed over $500 million, then for that investment you would want a sure thing. You would not want the element of risk that comes with another winner, at least halving your profits. That is a best case scenario for splitting the jackpot as well. The winnings will decrease for every other winning ticket so the losses suffered could be astronomical. To understand the potential disastrous outcome for this if 1 billion tickets are sold, then you will only have a 3% chance of hitting the winning jackpot without having to share it with another winner.

Physically Buying the Tickets

This is a more practical issue. Unless you can find 292 million volunteers then the process of purchasing and filling in every lottery ticket to guarantee a unique outcome is an almost impossible task. The possibility of using the quick draw or lucky dip option is not available to us because you need to ensure every ticket covers a unique outcome and covers every possible winning outcome.

In an ideal world, a large online consortium of players that would be willing to fill in a portion of those tickets each could realistically pull it off but the level of logistical management and organising that would be required for such a task would be insane. It also throws in the risk of human error. Imagine delegating 292 million tickets to a set of individuals and just one person fills in one of their tickets incorrectly? The whole system becomes flawed.

Someone Else Could Be Doing The Same

The appeal of buying every ticket combination might not be something that just one person would take on. For every person or consortium that dismisses the idea as too risky, there is going to be a more reckless individual or group of individuals in a consortium who will think the risk could financially pay off.

Once again, this relates to the splitting the jackpot issue. If you were the only person to be considering the idea of buying every lottery ticket combination then the odds of 3% to hit a winning jackpot without sharing it might be worth the gamble for a potential minimum $500 million profit. However, if several other individuals or consortia are on the same page as you then the financial losses could be devastatingly massive and the risk would certainly not be worth it.

Conclusion

The idea of buying every lottery ticket combination to guarantee a win is a scenario that at face value is very attractive. However, in reality, it is hugely flawed. Billionaires are not people on the poverty line that desperately need the winnings. So even taking that out of consideration, the risk and amount of investment required is simply not worth it for the potential winnings even in a best case scenario. Billionaires make their money by making sound financial decisions. It is extremely unlikely they will see buying every lottery ticket combination to win a massive jackpot prize as one of those sound financial decisions.

Source: casino.org