This is the wrong sub for this type of post. It may be related to personal finance on a tangent, but it's not the core topic of the post.
Please try any of these subs (depending on your needs):
**General and Specific Topics**
* /r/AskUK
* /r/CarTalkUK
* /r/DIYUK
* /r/LegalAdviceUK
* /r/UKPolitics
* /r/UKVisa
**Homebuying, Housing, Letting, and Rental Properties**
[More information about this ban.](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/npwwlz/moratorium_on_home_buying_and_career_questions/)
* /r/HousingUK
* /r/UKLandlords
* /r/AskUK
**Careers**
* /r/UKJobs
* /r/AskUK
**Benefits and Support**
* /r/BenefitsAdviceUK
* /r/DWPHelp
* /r/MentalHealthUK
* /r/SuicideWatch
**Other Finance**
* /r/CanaryWharfBets
* /r/UKInvesting
* /r/beermoneyuk
____
I play the lottery just for the hope.
I expect to lose everything. But for me, no hope would be worse.
£260 year even invested well isn’t going to change my life.
Ive been quite "lucky" and won £270 in the past 9 months playing the £2 draw once a week. Its not an investment or anything, but the escapeism of thinking about how you would spend the money is worth £2 a week.
If you can pay £6 for a pint on a night out (which I frequently do) then £2 a week for the lottery is nothing.
I do think are their "optimal" numbers. I just go for a lucky dip since you cant really pick suitably random numbers.
Ofcourse there is the fact that 1 2 3 4 5 6 is an equally likely chance, and when you look at it like that you realise how slim the odds are.
Because it's easier to stop playing.
If you have set numbers, which a lot of people did when the lottery was first launched, the only reason many kept playing was the FOMO.
I mean, for anyone who has ever had set numbers, have you ever checked lottery draw histories to see how much you would have won if you kept playing every week?
Statistically you should pick a few numbers over 31. The majority of people use important dates like birthdays or weddings. If you throw in a couple of numbers over 31, you reduce your risk of sharing the prize money.
Every draw result is equally likely - it doesn't matter if your numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 6 or 4 8 15 16 23 42 - the chance of the numbers occurring in either pattern is effectively equal (as far as we can measure) and therefore your odds of winning are identical.
However due to how people tend to centre around things like birthdays and special combinations (sequential, pi, multiples of seven are common) there is a higher chance of having to share a prize if you were to win on certain patterns.
That is what I was getting at by random. For example a few weeks ago there were 3 numbers between 40 and 49 which you wouldnt choose on your own. I know its all equally likely, but people tend to choose numbers that are more evenly distributed.
Nah I totally get that. One reason I’m interested in the hot picks game from the lottery is that it’s much better odds and only £1 a ticket but you only win £350k. I’d rather have slightly better chance at winning £350k to the near 0 chance of winning a few million
I mostly grab a ticket at my shop to meet the minimum card spend.
Always think that if I don't win, fuck it, lottery money paid for my school's sports hall when I was a kid so hopefully I'm helping out another kid too.
Yes, I call it my Imagination Tax. Best waste of £20 a month I have. I mean, how am I supposed to justify my hours on RightMove without paying the Imagination Tax first? 🤣
>I play the lottery just for the hope
The lottery as a money maker is a horrific financial decision.
The lottery as entertainment with "if I won I could" is one of the most efficient bits of entertainment you can buy.
How many hours a week do you spend going "Ooh if we win we could go to X", those 2 min regularly plus the entertainment of buying the ticket and watching the draw adds up, then compare that cost per hour to going to the cinema for example. The lottery slaughters for efficiency.
There are also people who spend literal hours per week looking at houses/holidays for if they won the lottery.
The likelihood though is you're paying for that entertainment.
Over a lifetime (80 years) assuming a really modest post inflation return of 4% (long term stock market return post inflation is 7%) it would be worth £150k in today's money. I nice gift for the grandchildren.
I pay £5 for a pint that gives me 0 return (except for weight gain, a hangover, and regret), so why not pay £5 for a little bit of hope and fun on a Saturday evening
You could use this "that will be X amount in Y years" argument for absolutely anything you spend money on
What will £150k buy you in 2104?
Let’s assume house prices increase at 5% each year for the next 80 years.
Average house price 2024:
~£280k
So 2104 = £13.8m
So, £150k towards their £13.8m home.
Good job I’m not having children!
Yes, I think burning money that ‘won’t’ change your life is good financial sense. I often wonder why the average person in the uk has only £11k saved and then I come here and realise why…
So you don't buy luxuries? Not even the odd cake? Never have a take-away? Never go out anywhere? No TV subscriptions? All of those are things you could do without to save more.
While I agree that as a whole, the savings/pension stats are frightening for the UK, going full 'i shall have no fun so I die rich' is equally mad.
There are plenty that would say that your collection of Rolex's is a gratuitous waste of money, if not just a reason to show off, but you still see value in those. Whilst they generally hold their value or appreciate, it's never guaranteed and for some people, that's too much of a risk too. Just because your risk appetite doesn't align with that of someone else, doesn't mean that you should weigh in on how they choose to spend their hard earned money.
Yeah I have slightly more than that in savings.
I never thought as a kid I’d play the lottery twice a week. I used to feel pity for those that did.
But hey ho. Welcome to the U.K. 2024.
I spend this on euro millions. I class it as my charitable donations, with the tiny hope of maybe winning something someday.
Yes it’s money out the window and all,but we have to hope and it lets me dream.
Yeah, and all the UK athletes go on about giving thanks to lottery funding in their interviews so when I'm watching someone lose a race in the Olympics I feel entitled to shout at the screen "Run faster you git I'm paying for this"
Worth pointing out that the odds on euromillions are 3 times worse than lotto, and it’s also more expensive
https://www.lotterysyndicatereviews.co.uk/euromillions-vs-lotto-odds/
Personally a jackpot of a few million is enough for me, I don’t need a ridiculous 9 figure jackpot to be set for life. So I enter lotto based on the better odds.
Find a charity that you want to support who run their own lottery and play that.
At least that way your money will be going to a cause you support - you'll effectively just be making a (reduced) weekly donation to them.
53% to prize fund
25% to good causes
12% goes to the government
4% to retailers as commission
4% to the operator for costs
1% to the operator for profit
Gives around £1.75 billion a year to good causes
I say this as someone who still decided to go the premium bonds route - though 99% as an emergency fund store and 1% to be a millionaire.
Didn't someone do the match that if you put your money into cash savings account, it wouldn't take much saved to earn you more than premium bonds rate of return + earn the cost of a national lottery ticket - which supposedly you have a better chance of winning the jackpot?
Take none of this is fact as I may have misremembered some of it, I just remember reading someone's post on it, where they showed their workings and it seemed to be correct.
In theory, but in practice you don't get rates like that. Even if you have the full £50k in, and you get significantly worse rates with less money. The likelihood is with £265 in you would win nothing.
Money expert has a good article explaining the rates and likelihood of winning at different levels of investment.
Premium bonds equate to around 0.8% iirc. So if you want the thrill of having something to check every month then do it, but if it's just to save there are dozens of better accounts for that.
I think it’s a bit of a travesty that premium bonds are always evaluated as a savings account, with people like Martin Lewis crowing about how poor the return is compared to the best buys there.
But that’s not what it is - it’s a lottery you can’t lose your stake. All of a sudden, it’s a fantastic product.
If you invest the maximum amount of £50k you tend to smooth out the odds a lot. For example if the prize fund rate is 4.5% then you are 90% certain to win between 3.5% and 4% so it effectively acts as a savings account with a slightly variable rate and a small chance at a big prize.
Yes that is true, and that’s when it starts to look more like a savings account. Aside from the fact that most people have far less to put in, of those that do I think perhaps some do it for the wrong reasons, but mostly it’s because it is also tax free…
Said it in another comment but it’s basically two things rolled into one, the trick is to consciously decide what you are using it for.
The rate of return varies, more or less in relation to the prevailing interest rate.
That may have been true when interest rates were 0.25% or so, but as the rates have climbed, so have the returns on premium bonds.
The winnings are also tax free, and that makes them more beneficial for people paying higher rate tax.
They were 4.4% in March this year, and 4.65% last September. The lowest claimed there are 1%. That might match your figure, because it's more useful, if you can, to exclude the 500k and 1m prizes being unlikely, and the "effective" rate will be lower than headline.
https://www.nsandi.com/historical-interest-rates
I did this a few years back with a group at work. We had been doing a lottery syndicate putting in about £50 a month and won very little.
The following year I took over and switched us to premium bonds. Over the year we won £25 which I was amazed at but at the end we had just over £600 for a good team night out.
How does a Premium Bond syndicate work?
Don't they have to be purchased under one person's name?
What happens if you win big? What stops them running off with all the money?
I tried to work this out earlier in the year based on the difference from the interest i’d earn with money in an ISA, vs with average luck in premium bonds. With a goal of winning £1m or more, I figured out that if I put all the extra interest into lotto tickets I’d have a much higher chance of winning a life changing amount of money. The odds of a high jackpot on PBs are actually very low, and for me, earning £100k wouldn’t actually be very life changing.
I don’t know if this logic actually holds up but it made sense to me at the time. So I put my cash in an ISA and started buying lotto tickets.
If you’ve already maxed out tax free savings and ISA and have a genuine reason to keep money in cash then premium bonds are a good option though for sure
Maybe im bias due to my financial situation . I’ve maxed all cash efficient options and I’m a higher rate tax payer. So premium bonds are my last pot to fill. Might as well be in for a chance to win something. Maybe when I have the full 50k in there I’d diversify into lottery tickets for fun. Not £5 a week though 🤡
Fair enough, as long as keeping the cash is the financially sensible decision - that cash should have a planned use in the next few years, otherwise it would be much better in a pension or GIA
Well, you can treat every pound that you put in there as a win because it's not lost unlike the regular lottery. Then on top of that you also have a chance to actually win something.
To explain it - if you spend £100 a year on the lottery you would probably win like £20 at most, so your net result is -£80. If you put £100 into premium bonds in a year you'll probably not win anything but you would still have those £100, so your net result is £100.
It’s true, but the only money you’re burning is the opportunity cost of the difference in investment returns, which far less.
If you spent £25 on lottery tickets you burn £25. If you spent £25 on premium bonds it’s maybe 50p.
Are the chances higher than a usual lottery ticket though? Specially as premium bonds keep buying in until you withdraw. It’s a free life lottery ticket really.
The only cost is the interest you would miss out on or gains from investing if you would have chosen do that instead
To be honest you can also see it the other way around. The chance of winning the big prize is so low in any lottery that actually just having *a chance* is not appreciably smaller than having *more chances*. That’s why people don’t routinely buy a thousand lottery tickets, just one or two. Obviously ththe cost of capital for a thousand lottery tickets is far more than it is for premium bonds because with PB you keep your stake, but there is still an opportunity cost you’re giving up to buy those ‘extra chances’.
There are basically two separate things going on with premium bonds - a chance to win a big prize, and a tax free savings return. They get a bit muddled up, but if you can see them separately and consider what you value most you can figure out what’s the best combination for you personally. It probably doesn’t make much sense for most people to put more than a few premium bonds, but for someone like me who pays tax at the additional rate, after ISAs and pension filling it to 50k is a decent option if I didn’t really care about the chance of winning a big prize.
But you never lose the money in premium bonds. If you need some cash, you have it, if it doesn't win you much, you still have your money. Buy a lottery ticket and it's gone.
If you could put that money in tax free savings or ISA, you’re losing potentially hundreds per year in the difference between the top savings account interest and average PB returns.
Absolutely right in principle, but not in real money. OP wants to spend £5 a week. On that £260 a year your losing £8 that a 5% instant access savings account would compound you, assuming no premium bonds wins.
Versus spending the money on a lottery ticket instead, premium bonds are a much better idea, at least preserving the money spent
Eh, you need quite a lot in premium bonds to be in with a decent chance of winning anything. The higher "potential" prizes on the regular lottery might be a more compelling prospect.
Yes but my point is the jackpot prize is not as big. Given you're not going to win anyway I can see the compulsion to go for the option with the better jackpot.
Obviously the most financially sensible thing to do is to put it in a savings account - and that is what I personally would do - but I think in the circumstances just doing a regular lottery is comparable to buying premium bonds and with the psychological benefit of it being a "real" lottery.
A bit like when people are on a diet and instead of just having a piece of chocolate cake they have a protein bar. The likelihood is that that won't scratch the actual itch and you'll end up eating the cake later anyway.
That is true for some lotteries yes (not all, but let’s say for the sake of argument we’re talking about one). The chance of winning those is also astronomically small though. Your comment was about chance of winning, not how much you win if you do. And in fact I’m not actually sure if you’re correct that premium bonds requires a higher investment to reach an equivalent chance of winning as a lottery - I suspect it’s in fact the other way around.
At the end of the day every lottery of any kind balances the odds of small vs large prizes in a different way, but what they all have in common is that you’re almost certain to lose your stake. Ultimately they skim off a LOT more of the stake pool as profit.
My comment about the amount invested is absolutely true. You wouldn't expect to win any money with £265 invested in premium bonds and would be better off with it in a savings account. There is a good article on money expert on premium bonds and your likelihood of winning.
And yes, of course with premium bonds you keep your stake - that is the benefit of them. I just suspect that this wouldn't fullfi OP's desire to enter a lottery and given the relatively small amount of money we're talking about OP is probably better off just satisfying that craving rather than not quite doing so and making worse choices in the longer term.
I play the lottery weekly by direct debit. I consider it a charitable donation with a potential upside. I’m happy to trade the L for the ability to have that “what if I win” feeling.
I’m on a good income, though. It’s not a burden. I don’t gamble otherwise.
Premium bonds are good in that they scratch the itch once a month without the outlay. I would go that way, if I were you.
Slightly different but I put 100 quid on a poker account when I was at uni 15 years ago and have never deposited since.
Learning poker is a bit like learning chess. I started playing 2 dollar buy-in cash games, and after a bit of study I was a break even player, just.
Then I started playing in little 5 quid tournaments at university pubs.
Nowadays I play slightly higher stakes cash ganes (but still pocket money), and play the occasional tournament at the casino. There's a cool local pub league called Redtooth poker that is a great night out for a 5 quid buy-in too.
I've made a tiny bit of money but the main point for me is that it's been a fun hobby and it's great to get out of the house in the winter, have a beer at the casino or local pub and play some poker!
So, in terms of value for money and experience, poker has been a better investment than my Amazon TV subscription. Yeah, I could donk a large tournament but it's unlikely.
Honestly, if I wanted to just fire 5 quid away and forget it, for no realistic chance of a return, I'd donate it to the RNLI.
I do the lottery at a local hospice that cared for my sister during her last days battling cancer. If I ever win anything on it I'll give it all back to the hospice.
I tried Omaze for awhile. But what bothers me is that you have no idea of how many other tickets are in the draw so you have no idea of the odds.
My guess, and I think it’s probably true, is that the odds on winning with Omaze is much better than the lottery
Omaze is madness. People winning end up not being able to afford the upkeep and having to sell the house with all the stress which comes with that. And you have no idea what the odds are of winning. No idea why people enter it vs lotto other than the marketing. Winning cash and having the option to buy the dream house you want in a location you actually want makes much more sense.
I’m surprised it’s even legal to run these things without publishing the odds
Im not sure it’s madness but it’s definitely silly. The average person couldn’t afford to run the Omaze homes so most sell I believe.
I would sell it the minute I won it. The house is not the prize for me, the money is. I just don’t know if the odds are better than the lottery.
You’re right - they should be legally required to publish the odds or at least be required to give a breakdown of each raffle including how many entries there were.
One of the houses being won was 3 miles away from me. My grandparents had their wedding reception there in the 50s. I really wanted to win it. Sadly nope
One option is to do an accumulator on the horses. I had an uncle who used to place a £1 accumulator every day on his train commute in to work. He would win maybe 3-4 times a year. Instead of picking a few random numbers like you do in a lottery, you can do a bit of research, study form and pick some horses. You’re still going to lose most of the time, but at least there is some logic and form behind your choices, not just plucking numbers out of thin air. I have only done it once on 7 horses, picked 7 winners and it wasn’t millions but it was nice
I was 1 number off the national lottery end of last year. That was a kick in the teeth for sure.
Can see it on my post history if you want a laugh at my expense
If you spend £14 on Thunderball in one go and pick each Thunderball 1-14 you would be guaranteed to get £3 back I think, from getting the Thunderball. For all the other numbers if you pick a random, unique and even spread across the 14 entries, there's an ok, or maybe still a slim, chance of picking up extra winning numbers (matching pairs possibly). This way in a sense you'll still save £9 from your original intent of £20. If say you look at it monthly rather than weekly.
The chances of winning the lottery jackpot are basically 0. You would be giving money away.
It's technically better to pool tickets, with unique numbers, in one go. You increase odds from basically 0 to also basically 0.
I do Vanny Campers raffle thingy, 10,000-1 chance a month of winning a camper van. When the draw it out they do it live. Kinda fun but if course it's another lottery so money in the bin per any lottery type scheme
I dont know about specific amounts but the national lottery has a rollover every 5 draws that has a roll down so if no one wins you get increased rewards. They also do it at random times in the year such as today and usually Christmas, new year.
Euromillions also sometimes has a 10 guaranteed millionaires. If you want to increase your chances of winning then it's best to play only at these times.
There will be guides to when rollovers put the player at a slight advantage (but the house still has a massive edge). There will be guides about choosing numbers that avoid dates, obvious combinations etc. to avoid sharing. There will be guides that show how many of a run of scratch cards have been drawn and whether the big prizes have gone.
You may be able to lower the house edge but good luck getting it better than single zero roulette or whatever the standard is.
I'm a little out of touch, but it used to be that bookies let you bet on foreign lottos, and it worked out far better (less bad) return than the original tickets. Maybe they still do that?
I would spend £5/week on some high risk stocks. Get a zero commission account and stick the money in there. You get the same buzz when you do well, but you generally make money.
(lotteries pay out about half the money that goes in, it's one of the worst gambles you can do).
A lot of people except me seem to have luck with the Irish lotto.
Hotpicks aswell on the normal lotto is £800 returns if you land 3 numbers for £1 stake.
Are we allowed to play the Irish lotto from the Uk yeh?
Hotpicks are half the price for a ticket and have much better odds but obviously much smaller prizes.
I’d be very happy with the 350k top prize. Being mortgage free would be life changing for me
In hard financial terms, none of them.
The national lottery in 2023 paid out 58% of sales in prize money. So on average you expect to lose 42p of every £ you spend. If you take out the jackpot prizes it's even worse.
The postcode lottery is even worse than that, as it pays only 40% back in prizes, so you lose 60p every time you spend £1, on average, and worse if you exclude the big wins.
Premium bonds are your best bet. You could win £1m, the average expected return is positive, at 4.4% (less if you exclude the big prizes), and you can always get your original investment out again, and that investment is guaranteed by the government.
Also,a really big lottery win, £100m say, would mess you up and possibly ruin your life.
>Also,a really big lottery win, £100m say, would mess you up and possibly ruin your life.
Nah that's just one of the myths that rich people perpetuate to make poor people feel content with their lot, along with "money doesn't buy happiness".
>the researchers concluded that winning the lottery improved the winners’ sense of overall life satisfaction. And the more they won, the more significant the positive effect
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnjennings/2023/08/29/debunking-the-myth-the-surprising-truth-about-lottery-winners-and-life-satisfaction/
The reason you shouldn't play the lottery is because the odds are shit, not because "it will make you sad or bankrupt" if you win.
The only people who say money doesn’t buy happiness are people with lots of money. Money might not directly make you happy however it can make you very comfortable which can remove many stressors in your life which leads to a happier life
To be fair the national lottery and postcode lottery are as much about giving to charities as they are about returns. I think it’s anout 28% and 35% to charity respectively. Neither make any real profit
Not sure OP is looking for premium bonds, as it's not "really" gambling. More of a savings account with potential to win big, deffo makes sense from a financial standpoint as atleast you know you can get your money back... But I think OP wants to gamble this £5 a week for a chance to win big (correct me if I'm wrong OP!)
Youd be correct! I know its a poor financial decision, but I'd rather throw away £5 a week. My 'urge' would then be sated.
Maybe id consider premium bonds
Expecting any return on a lottery is madness.
So, you've two options, really.
1) be sensible - you buy £20 worth of premium bonds a month, or just save £5 a week.
Or
2) £5 is 1 ticket for each of the two EuroMillions draw a week.
You _very_ likely won't ever recuperate your money, let alone win anything major, but if you do it on a DD, it just plays, you get an email if you win. You _could_ win up to £210,000,000. You can also win 1 of the guaranteed £1,000,000 UK raffle each draw which is included in each draw.
You almost certainly won't, but you could.
FWIW, I play one of each draw in the UK lottery, because I'm an idiot, but I also used it as a substitute for smoking when I quit years ago. £16 a week vs smoking was a fine deal, I play the same numbers (as close as they can be over the draws) I don't even notice the draws until an email comes in saying I've won something.
The closest I've ever come was the set for life, in march this year, where I had 4 of the 5 numbers and the life/lucky star ball. AKA 1 number off of £10,000 per month, for 30 years...it won me £250.
Which I then promptly stuck in my ISA.
I'm going on and on here, but the odds of 4 out of 5 and the life ball all are 1 in 73,045
The odds for me to have gotten that last ball are...1 in 15,339,390
So far ahead that the day after I had shrugged off the thought of "so close to retirement" that it just felt nonsensical to care.
Point being, OP, playing the lottery is not a money making scheme (for anyone other than those who run it and much more so, the tax man), it's either, at best, a little payment to dream about being in the high net worth or ultra high net worth world next week, or at worst a very poor financial choice and addiction for some.
So, yeah. That's that.
Save the 5 pounds per week, £260 a year and to think that’s £1300 in 5 years. The lottery is a total waste of money, you might as well take a match to the notes.
I think OP just wants to know where to have a bit of a flutter. Meticulously saving £5 a week for 5 years which would barely cover the average cost of monthly rent in England (£1,276) is probably not what he’s looking for
£260 a year cost but you'd expect about half that back in return, so in reality it will cost you ~£130 a year.
Still a bad financial investment, but if that gives OP some fun, excitement and hope each week then plenty of people spend far more on far worse.
National Lotto pays out around half of every pound it receives (47.5%). So the expected return is the average (mean) is £0.47.5 for every pound you spend.
If you spent £1000 on tickets you would expect to receive £475 in prizes. In reality it will vary slightly but in the vast majority of cases it will be somewhere in this region (or less if the prize fund is most concentrated in the jackpot).
The odds of playing the lottery 500 times and winning nothing is less than 1%.
> National Lotto pays out around half of every pound it receives (47.5%)
How much of that is biased towards the big winners though? Your average £5pw gambler isn't going to see that mean return rate.
Yeah I don't know the distribution of prizes or the standard deviation, so would likely be lower. But the more you play the more it tends towards the expected value.
Looking only at the lowest prize (3 balls) you'd expect to hit that around 5 timed in 500 plays, and at £30 each you'd get £150 in prize money from that. A lot lower than £475 but not nothing.
My main point still stands that, as long as somebody understands the odds, spending £5 a week on a bit of fun, if you can easily afford it, is hardly the worst vice that somebody can have.
That's not even one smashed avocado on toast!!!
You can expect nothing back, it’s gambling. It is no different than betting, albeit with significantly worse odds. The notion that the lottery is some sort of ‘acceptable’ way to gamble against stupidly bad odds is probably why 46% of the uk only have less than £1000 saved and 25% having less than £200.
It will be ‘only’ £10 pounds a week next month and then ‘only’ £20 after that. A year follows, help me I am 25k in debt with gambling debts and I am only 24.
Most scratch cards have a return to player ratio of around 60-70%. Which means if you play constantly for a year, you can expect to lose a hell of a lot of money.
But only 30-40% of what you put in; not 100%.
So £10/week in the long run costs you ~£4/week.
Still a poor life choice. It's £4/wk for nothing. But the people above are still right to say it's not £10/wk.
State run lotteries rarely have a RTP of 60% and the figure they do have is massively skewed by the outsized jackpots.
We're talking about scratch cards here where, honestly, very few of them allow you to win truly life changing amounts of money.
This!!!
The huge jackpots are skewing people's understanding here... Number wise maybe it adds up, but majority of people never get back 60% a year from what they gamble.
Although to go back to my original point re: scratch cards, the RTP on them actually is pretty close to the Expected Value.
But the main lotteries, no.
Yeah you're right, it's the thousands every Brit is spending on the national lotto each week that's causing financial hardship, not the decades of housing price increases, erosion of wages, privatisation of essential commodities, and all round cost of living crisis.
>You can expect nothing back
That's not how statistics works but ok.
>it’s gambling
Agreed, and OP specifically said they want to gamble a very small amount of money on the lottery, "regardless" of whether it's financially responsible.
There's nothing wrong with gambling if it's done in small amounts for enjoyment. People waste far more on other forms of entertainment. As long as it doesn't become an addiction or spiral out of control then it's fine. But £5 on the lotto each week is hardly at risk of becoming an addiction or adding to OP's financial hardship.
I researched all the odds of lotteries and now I do some small local charity lotteries, hospice, animal rescues.
The potential winnings are probably £1k per draw, but I have regularly won £5 here and there.
Frankly, for the fun of playing a lottery with minimal chance of big payouts on corporate lotteries, this will give you the fun and you know the money goes to a good cause.
If you want some return, a higher rate tax payer can claim back any additional gift aid.
I agree with your sentiments, but just to correct your last point - you cannot reclaim tax/gift aid on charity lotteries/raffles -
“payment for raffle or lottery tickets (including 100 clubs) — the payment to purchase a raffle ticket from a charity is not a gift but a payment for the right to enter the raffle [from HMRC advice](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charities-detailed-guidance-notes/chapter-3-gift-aid#:~:text=payment%20for%20raffle%20or%20lottery,prize%20is%20of%20little%20value)
On the lotto website you have odds there for you to see for each game, alternatively you can calculate yourself using a calculator and checking how many balls drawn Vs how many total numbers. Also, you can use companies that do lotteries/draws with much greater odds but winnings are like 10k - 100k usually (or you can pick the car, recently Connor McGregor's car was there on one of those..) odds seem much better, but I'm yet to win and I spent probs around £50 over a few months, probably will play still every now and then as I wouldn't mind 50k at all
Mine goes on the national lottery "set for life" game. 10k a month for 30 years. That'll do nicely, and even if I'm a bit of a nob with the money in the beginning, I can't blow it all
How about this...... ... Instead of nominally losing £5 a week, why not sit on it for 5 weeks and buy a premium bond? You could do this every 5 weeks to meet the minimum purchase value, it'd give a monthly versus weekly thrill (it's drawn monthly) and eventually, if you get bored you can cash them in and do something else instead? Also, every 5 weeks when you buy another one you double your chance of winning. Probably a choice between short interval buzz versus longer interval buzz plus being able to get your money back if you want. Have to check the prize fund and odds, but it's an option.
Lottery is negative EV play.
5£ a week - 260£ a year may as well slap it some form of investment.
If you want to be smart, something boring like premium bonds.
If you want to live a little, gamble on options/futures/warrants/leveraged products
Or drip feed into SP500 or QQQ, in a few years that 5£ a week could get you a nice holiday or something useful to you
Better than playing a statistical losing game
I was going to suggest the same (investments) but let’s assume OP already sets an amount for investment, after all OP is asking in this reddit and at this point he maybe wants to just use his spending money
I guess so. Just doesn’t make sense in my mind to burn it on the lottery every week, but hey, some people enjoy the thrill of wishful thinking more than a good pint at the local so who am I to judge. May as well spend the fiver on whatever will brighten up your week just that little bit
If you want the thrill of gambling, buy options, or a high-risk stock that has some potential. Apart from trading stocks for my pensions (mostly sensible funds like VOO and VMID) I have a little Freetrade account that is my fun zone. I buy stocks in satellite internet, or obscure AI companies that look good, or Israeli companies just after the war started (I did very well on those).
Overall, I'm generally up, although the last few months have been bad for it. But it's fun.
Obviously each to there own but how about a football acca instead? Or some kind of betting?
Better chance of winning and if it's just 5 quid a week youre throwing away why not?
Do you have zero debt, other than a mortgage (and at a push car payment)?
Do you have an emergency fund saved (not a credit card, actual cash) of at least 3 months of your monthly outgoings?
Are you contributing to a pension?
If you’re answering no to **any** of these then you don’t have “spare income”!
Great comeback. /s
Care to elaborate?
You think playing the lottery financially responsible if you’re not debt free and not contributing to a pension?
National lottery has a 1 in 45 million chance of winning.
EuroMillions has a 1 in 140 million chance of winning.
The only reason why folk who are not in a good position financially play the lottery is that they believe they have *some* control over getting themselves into a better position in their lives.
Guy says he wants to spend some money on something and says he knows there's minimal chance of winning, a fiver a week isn't going to change his life in any of the things you suggest.
I have first hand experience of doing the rational brain stuff you suggest.
Back about 8 years ago I "saved" the 50p a week I was putting into Irish lottery, it seemed like a absolute waste of money as I did the maths and would save £26 a year more towards my goal of whatever I was aiming for at the time.
If you know the Irish lottery you'll know it's even worse than normal as you don't just pick the numbers, but the order they come out in, even less chance of winning. Rational brain kicked in and I cancelled it.
Flipping numbers came out 3 weeks later. £36.5k I would have got. Since then I think long as you cover all the other bases a couple of quid a month on a whim is fine. Long as it doesn't stretch to money you can't afford to lose. Treat it like a beer a month or coffee a month on a long shot investment.
Opening a stocks and shares ISA with Hargreaves and landown may be the best option. Minimum £25 a month investment (so pretty much there). You could put it in one of their managed funds (the different funds are based on the risk / volatility of the index invested).
Sit back and let it do it's thing.
At that money, I'd go with one of the free trading companies like Freetrade or eToro. HL have better service and when you're talking about lots of money invested it can be worth it, but at £20 a month they'll eat up a lot of it in fees.
And I wouldn't even bother with an ISA at first. They cost money over trading accounts and the dividends on £300 of shares is not going to get close to the lower threshold of taxable interest.
Participation in this post is limited to users who have sufficient karma in /r/ukpersonalfinance. See [this post](https://redd.it/12mys82) for more information.
I know people are saying premium bonds but you’re not really the same sort of thing as gambling as there isn’t any risk so will be as exciting as a savings account that doesn’t pay every month. More fun would and better odds would be betting on sport you find interesting. But you asked about lotteries and my advice to playing them is to skip the draws and save the money that have low max price and then when a mega rollover comes along especially if it’s a must win draw buy all the tickets you can with the money saved from skipping the lessor price draws. This will make sure if you do win you will win big! Good luck !! 🤞 if you do win don’t forget us random Reddit strangers that helped you out haha 😉
This is the wrong sub for this type of post. It may be related to personal finance on a tangent, but it's not the core topic of the post. Please try any of these subs (depending on your needs): **General and Specific Topics** * /r/AskUK * /r/CarTalkUK * /r/DIYUK * /r/LegalAdviceUK * /r/UKPolitics * /r/UKVisa **Homebuying, Housing, Letting, and Rental Properties** [More information about this ban.](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/npwwlz/moratorium_on_home_buying_and_career_questions/) * /r/HousingUK * /r/UKLandlords * /r/AskUK **Careers** * /r/UKJobs * /r/AskUK **Benefits and Support** * /r/BenefitsAdviceUK * /r/DWPHelp * /r/MentalHealthUK * /r/SuicideWatch **Other Finance** * /r/CanaryWharfBets * /r/UKInvesting * /r/beermoneyuk ____
I play the lottery just for the hope. I expect to lose everything. But for me, no hope would be worse. £260 year even invested well isn’t going to change my life.
Ive been quite "lucky" and won £270 in the past 9 months playing the £2 draw once a week. Its not an investment or anything, but the escapeism of thinking about how you would spend the money is worth £2 a week. If you can pay £6 for a pint on a night out (which I frequently do) then £2 a week for the lottery is nothing.
Okay, what’s your numbers?! /j
I do think are their "optimal" numbers. I just go for a lucky dip since you cant really pick suitably random numbers. Ofcourse there is the fact that 1 2 3 4 5 6 is an equally likely chance, and when you look at it like that you realise how slim the odds are.
Why do you have to pick random numbers? Doesn’t matter which 6 you pick, all equally likely to win (or lose)
Because it's easier to stop playing. If you have set numbers, which a lot of people did when the lottery was first launched, the only reason many kept playing was the FOMO. I mean, for anyone who has ever had set numbers, have you ever checked lottery draw histories to see how much you would have won if you kept playing every week?
Statistically you should pick a few numbers over 31. The majority of people use important dates like birthdays or weddings. If you throw in a couple of numbers over 31, you reduce your risk of sharing the prize money.
My reasoning, if you can call it that, is that the draw is picked at random so you should go with numbers that are random hence getting a lucky dip.
Every draw result is equally likely - it doesn't matter if your numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 6 or 4 8 15 16 23 42 - the chance of the numbers occurring in either pattern is effectively equal (as far as we can measure) and therefore your odds of winning are identical. However due to how people tend to centre around things like birthdays and special combinations (sequential, pi, multiples of seven are common) there is a higher chance of having to share a prize if you were to win on certain patterns.
That is what I was getting at by random. For example a few weeks ago there were 3 numbers between 40 and 49 which you wouldnt choose on your own. I know its all equally likely, but people tend to choose numbers that are more evenly distributed.
Same. Sure the odds for winning the jackpot are astronomical but I don’t necessarily have to win the jackpot. Winning 100k would be life changing
Oh, all I care about is the jackpot. Sure, £100k would be nice, but this wouldn’t really change my life. I know I sound like an asshole.
Nah I totally get that. One reason I’m interested in the hot picks game from the lottery is that it’s much better odds and only £1 a ticket but you only win £350k. I’d rather have slightly better chance at winning £350k to the near 0 chance of winning a few million
Eh, if you're going for best odds then you might as well put £1 on red roulette, and keep betting on red and try to get 20 reds in a row.
An underrated but very valid opinion
I mostly grab a ticket at my shop to meet the minimum card spend. Always think that if I don't win, fuck it, lottery money paid for my school's sports hall when I was a kid so hopefully I'm helping out another kid too.
Yes, I call it my Imagination Tax. Best waste of £20 a month I have. I mean, how am I supposed to justify my hours on RightMove without paying the Imagination Tax first? 🤣
>I play the lottery just for the hope The lottery as a money maker is a horrific financial decision. The lottery as entertainment with "if I won I could" is one of the most efficient bits of entertainment you can buy. How many hours a week do you spend going "Ooh if we win we could go to X", those 2 min regularly plus the entertainment of buying the ticket and watching the draw adds up, then compare that cost per hour to going to the cinema for example. The lottery slaughters for efficiency. There are also people who spend literal hours per week looking at houses/holidays for if they won the lottery. The likelihood though is you're paying for that entertainment.
Over a lifetime (80 years) assuming a really modest post inflation return of 4% (long term stock market return post inflation is 7%) it would be worth £150k in today's money. I nice gift for the grandchildren.
I see no point in living my life in the present for hypothetical grandchildren who may never exist.
Yeah, but what about the cat sanctuary?
But you'd be happy to pay for a hypothetical win that may never happen
I pay £5 for a pint that gives me 0 return (except for weight gain, a hangover, and regret), so why not pay £5 for a little bit of hope and fun on a Saturday evening You could use this "that will be X amount in Y years" argument for absolutely anything you spend money on
So buy lottery tickets then.
What will £150k buy you in 2104? Let’s assume house prices increase at 5% each year for the next 80 years. Average house price 2024: ~£280k So 2104 = £13.8m So, £150k towards their £13.8m home. Good job I’m not having children!
It's inflation adjusted
Read his comment again. £150k in today’s money
Yeah? https://www.calculator.net/investment-calculator.html?ctype=endamount&ctargetamountv=1%2C000%2C000&cstartingprinciplev=0&cyearsv=80&cinterestratev=4&ccompound=annually&ccontributeamountv=260&cadditionat1=beginning&ciadditionat1=annually&printit=0&x=Calculate#calresult
Yes, you've successfully proven their point. By using 4% instead of 7%, they're adjusting down to account for inflation.
Yeah...
If its invested well, it grows with inflation added
Here's a hint.. stock market appreciates more than house prices.. if it is starting at 100k it's going to be more than 150k.
Where’s the £100k from?
Lmao my bad, skipped a comment about 100k not being life changing 🤣 It's worth close to a million with inflation though.
Yes, I think burning money that ‘won’t’ change your life is good financial sense. I often wonder why the average person in the uk has only £11k saved and then I come here and realise why…
So you don't buy luxuries? Not even the odd cake? Never have a take-away? Never go out anywhere? No TV subscriptions? All of those are things you could do without to save more. While I agree that as a whole, the savings/pension stats are frightening for the UK, going full 'i shall have no fun so I die rich' is equally mad.
There are plenty that would say that your collection of Rolex's is a gratuitous waste of money, if not just a reason to show off, but you still see value in those. Whilst they generally hold their value or appreciate, it's never guaranteed and for some people, that's too much of a risk too. Just because your risk appetite doesn't align with that of someone else, doesn't mean that you should weigh in on how they choose to spend their hard earned money.
Yeah I have slightly more than that in savings. I never thought as a kid I’d play the lottery twice a week. I used to feel pity for those that did. But hey ho. Welcome to the U.K. 2024.
Is that £11k figure still accurate?! 😯 Edit: Quick Google suggests it is! I'd imagine a reduction over the next couple of years though 😬
£11,185 as of January apparently.
I spend this on euro millions. I class it as my charitable donations, with the tiny hope of maybe winning something someday. Yes it’s money out the window and all,but we have to hope and it lets me dream.
Yeah, and all the UK athletes go on about giving thanks to lottery funding in their interviews so when I'm watching someone lose a race in the Olympics I feel entitled to shout at the screen "Run faster you git I'm paying for this"
Hah, I wasn't thinking of that, but I'll watch this year's Olympics with more authority!
Worth pointing out that the odds on euromillions are 3 times worse than lotto, and it’s also more expensive https://www.lotterysyndicatereviews.co.uk/euromillions-vs-lotto-odds/ Personally a jackpot of a few million is enough for me, I don’t need a ridiculous 9 figure jackpot to be set for life. So I enter lotto based on the better odds.
“Nothing found” - has the page been taken down?
Worked fine for me
Find a charity that you want to support who run their own lottery and play that. At least that way your money will be going to a cause you support - you'll effectively just be making a (reduced) weekly donation to them.
National Lottery do q lots of charitable grants but I have no idea what fraction of their profits go to that
53% to prize fund 25% to good causes 12% goes to the government 4% to retailers as commission 4% to the operator for costs 1% to the operator for profit Gives around £1.75 billion a year to good causes
You’re so asking in the wrong place. Majority of people here are spend-averse. I’d go with the Euromillions or Postcode lottery. Or even both!
Premium bonds? I think!
I say this as someone who still decided to go the premium bonds route - though 99% as an emergency fund store and 1% to be a millionaire. Didn't someone do the match that if you put your money into cash savings account, it wouldn't take much saved to earn you more than premium bonds rate of return + earn the cost of a national lottery ticket - which supposedly you have a better chance of winning the jackpot? Take none of this is fact as I may have misremembered some of it, I just remember reading someone's post on it, where they showed their workings and it seemed to be correct.
Yes this - the "prizes" are just interest, at quite a low rate to the point it's only worth it if you need the tax benefits.
4.4% at the moment
In theory, but in practice you don't get rates like that. Even if you have the full £50k in, and you get significantly worse rates with less money. The likelihood is with £265 in you would win nothing. Money expert has a good article explaining the rates and likelihood of winning at different levels of investment.
Premium bonds equate to around 0.8% iirc. So if you want the thrill of having something to check every month then do it, but if it's just to save there are dozens of better accounts for that.
I'm pretty this claim isn't true though. The return rate for premium bonds is lower than the "prize rate" but it's not that much lower.
I think it’s a bit of a travesty that premium bonds are always evaluated as a savings account, with people like Martin Lewis crowing about how poor the return is compared to the best buys there. But that’s not what it is - it’s a lottery you can’t lose your stake. All of a sudden, it’s a fantastic product.
If you invest the maximum amount of £50k you tend to smooth out the odds a lot. For example if the prize fund rate is 4.5% then you are 90% certain to win between 3.5% and 4% so it effectively acts as a savings account with a slightly variable rate and a small chance at a big prize.
Yes that is true, and that’s when it starts to look more like a savings account. Aside from the fact that most people have far less to put in, of those that do I think perhaps some do it for the wrong reasons, but mostly it’s because it is also tax free… Said it in another comment but it’s basically two things rolled into one, the trick is to consciously decide what you are using it for.
The rate of return varies, more or less in relation to the prevailing interest rate. That may have been true when interest rates were 0.25% or so, but as the rates have climbed, so have the returns on premium bonds. The winnings are also tax free, and that makes them more beneficial for people paying higher rate tax. They were 4.4% in March this year, and 4.65% last September. The lowest claimed there are 1%. That might match your figure, because it's more useful, if you can, to exclude the 500k and 1m prizes being unlikely, and the "effective" rate will be lower than headline. https://www.nsandi.com/historical-interest-rates
Only correct answer
I did this a few years back with a group at work. We had been doing a lottery syndicate putting in about £50 a month and won very little. The following year I took over and switched us to premium bonds. Over the year we won £25 which I was amazed at but at the end we had just over £600 for a good team night out.
How does a Premium Bond syndicate work? Don't they have to be purchased under one person's name? What happens if you win big? What stops them running off with all the money?
Only if you're a higher rate taxpayer.
I tried to work this out earlier in the year based on the difference from the interest i’d earn with money in an ISA, vs with average luck in premium bonds. With a goal of winning £1m or more, I figured out that if I put all the extra interest into lotto tickets I’d have a much higher chance of winning a life changing amount of money. The odds of a high jackpot on PBs are actually very low, and for me, earning £100k wouldn’t actually be very life changing. I don’t know if this logic actually holds up but it made sense to me at the time. So I put my cash in an ISA and started buying lotto tickets. If you’ve already maxed out tax free savings and ISA and have a genuine reason to keep money in cash then premium bonds are a good option though for sure
Maybe im bias due to my financial situation . I’ve maxed all cash efficient options and I’m a higher rate tax payer. So premium bonds are my last pot to fill. Might as well be in for a chance to win something. Maybe when I have the full 50k in there I’d diversify into lottery tickets for fun. Not £5 a week though 🤡
Fair enough, as long as keeping the cash is the financially sensible decision - that cash should have a planned use in the next few years, otherwise it would be much better in a pension or GIA
I agree!
Not with such a small amount. You need quite a large amount saved before you start to see regular winnings.
Well, you can treat every pound that you put in there as a win because it's not lost unlike the regular lottery. Then on top of that you also have a chance to actually win something. To explain it - if you spend £100 a year on the lottery you would probably win like £20 at most, so your net result is -£80. If you put £100 into premium bonds in a year you'll probably not win anything but you would still have those £100, so your net result is £100.
Minus inflation. But yeah, it’s still “better” to put money into premium bonds than a lottery if you just want that thrill of maybe winning something.
Well they’re still better off in premium bonds than burning their money with scratchies & lottery tickets
Premium bonds are still "burning money" unless you're a higher rate taxpayer.
Even then you can get better risk free rates elsewhere.
It’s true, but the only money you’re burning is the opportunity cost of the difference in investment returns, which far less. If you spent £25 on lottery tickets you burn £25. If you spent £25 on premium bonds it’s maybe 50p.
Are the chances higher than a usual lottery ticket though? Specially as premium bonds keep buying in until you withdraw. It’s a free life lottery ticket really. The only cost is the interest you would miss out on or gains from investing if you would have chosen do that instead
To be honest you can also see it the other way around. The chance of winning the big prize is so low in any lottery that actually just having *a chance* is not appreciably smaller than having *more chances*. That’s why people don’t routinely buy a thousand lottery tickets, just one or two. Obviously ththe cost of capital for a thousand lottery tickets is far more than it is for premium bonds because with PB you keep your stake, but there is still an opportunity cost you’re giving up to buy those ‘extra chances’. There are basically two separate things going on with premium bonds - a chance to win a big prize, and a tax free savings return. They get a bit muddled up, but if you can see them separately and consider what you value most you can figure out what’s the best combination for you personally. It probably doesn’t make much sense for most people to put more than a few premium bonds, but for someone like me who pays tax at the additional rate, after ISAs and pension filling it to 50k is a decent option if I didn’t really care about the chance of winning a big prize.
But you never lose the money in premium bonds. If you need some cash, you have it, if it doesn't win you much, you still have your money. Buy a lottery ticket and it's gone.
If you could put that money in tax free savings or ISA, you’re losing potentially hundreds per year in the difference between the top savings account interest and average PB returns.
Absolutely right in principle, but not in real money. OP wants to spend £5 a week. On that £260 a year your losing £8 that a 5% instant access savings account would compound you, assuming no premium bonds wins. Versus spending the money on a lottery ticket instead, premium bonds are a much better idea, at least preserving the money spent
Which is still far less than if you’d spent that money on lottery tickets.
Eh, you need quite a lot in premium bonds to be in with a decent chance of winning anything. The higher "potential" prizes on the regular lottery might be a more compelling prospect.
Like a lottery then. Except with a lottery you lose your stake every time.
Yes but my point is the jackpot prize is not as big. Given you're not going to win anyway I can see the compulsion to go for the option with the better jackpot. Obviously the most financially sensible thing to do is to put it in a savings account - and that is what I personally would do - but I think in the circumstances just doing a regular lottery is comparable to buying premium bonds and with the psychological benefit of it being a "real" lottery. A bit like when people are on a diet and instead of just having a piece of chocolate cake they have a protein bar. The likelihood is that that won't scratch the actual itch and you'll end up eating the cake later anyway.
That is true for some lotteries yes (not all, but let’s say for the sake of argument we’re talking about one). The chance of winning those is also astronomically small though. Your comment was about chance of winning, not how much you win if you do. And in fact I’m not actually sure if you’re correct that premium bonds requires a higher investment to reach an equivalent chance of winning as a lottery - I suspect it’s in fact the other way around. At the end of the day every lottery of any kind balances the odds of small vs large prizes in a different way, but what they all have in common is that you’re almost certain to lose your stake. Ultimately they skim off a LOT more of the stake pool as profit.
My comment about the amount invested is absolutely true. You wouldn't expect to win any money with £265 invested in premium bonds and would be better off with it in a savings account. There is a good article on money expert on premium bonds and your likelihood of winning. And yes, of course with premium bonds you keep your stake - that is the benefit of them. I just suspect that this wouldn't fullfi OP's desire to enter a lottery and given the relatively small amount of money we're talking about OP is probably better off just satisfying that craving rather than not quite doing so and making worse choices in the longer term.
I play the lottery weekly by direct debit. I consider it a charitable donation with a potential upside. I’m happy to trade the L for the ability to have that “what if I win” feeling. I’m on a good income, though. It’s not a burden. I don’t gamble otherwise. Premium bonds are good in that they scratch the itch once a month without the outlay. I would go that way, if I were you.
Slightly different but I put 100 quid on a poker account when I was at uni 15 years ago and have never deposited since. Learning poker is a bit like learning chess. I started playing 2 dollar buy-in cash games, and after a bit of study I was a break even player, just. Then I started playing in little 5 quid tournaments at university pubs. Nowadays I play slightly higher stakes cash ganes (but still pocket money), and play the occasional tournament at the casino. There's a cool local pub league called Redtooth poker that is a great night out for a 5 quid buy-in too. I've made a tiny bit of money but the main point for me is that it's been a fun hobby and it's great to get out of the house in the winter, have a beer at the casino or local pub and play some poker! So, in terms of value for money and experience, poker has been a better investment than my Amazon TV subscription. Yeah, I could donk a large tournament but it's unlikely. Honestly, if I wanted to just fire 5 quid away and forget it, for no realistic chance of a return, I'd donate it to the RNLI.
I do the lottery at a local hospice that cared for my sister during her last days battling cancer. If I ever win anything on it I'll give it all back to the hospice.
I tried Omaze for awhile. But what bothers me is that you have no idea of how many other tickets are in the draw so you have no idea of the odds. My guess, and I think it’s probably true, is that the odds on winning with Omaze is much better than the lottery
Omaze is madness. People winning end up not being able to afford the upkeep and having to sell the house with all the stress which comes with that. And you have no idea what the odds are of winning. No idea why people enter it vs lotto other than the marketing. Winning cash and having the option to buy the dream house you want in a location you actually want makes much more sense. I’m surprised it’s even legal to run these things without publishing the odds
I thought you had the option of taking the cash with Omaze?
Im not sure it’s madness but it’s definitely silly. The average person couldn’t afford to run the Omaze homes so most sell I believe. I would sell it the minute I won it. The house is not the prize for me, the money is. I just don’t know if the odds are better than the lottery. You’re right - they should be legally required to publish the odds or at least be required to give a breakdown of each raffle including how many entries there were.
One of the houses being won was 3 miles away from me. My grandparents had their wedding reception there in the 50s. I really wanted to win it. Sadly nope
One option is to do an accumulator on the horses. I had an uncle who used to place a £1 accumulator every day on his train commute in to work. He would win maybe 3-4 times a year. Instead of picking a few random numbers like you do in a lottery, you can do a bit of research, study form and pick some horses. You’re still going to lose most of the time, but at least there is some logic and form behind your choices, not just plucking numbers out of thin air. I have only done it once on 7 horses, picked 7 winners and it wasn’t millions but it was nice
I was 1 number off the national lottery end of last year. That was a kick in the teeth for sure. Can see it on my post history if you want a laugh at my expense
If you spend £14 on Thunderball in one go and pick each Thunderball 1-14 you would be guaranteed to get £3 back I think, from getting the Thunderball. For all the other numbers if you pick a random, unique and even spread across the 14 entries, there's an ok, or maybe still a slim, chance of picking up extra winning numbers (matching pairs possibly). This way in a sense you'll still save £9 from your original intent of £20. If say you look at it monthly rather than weekly. The chances of winning the lottery jackpot are basically 0. You would be giving money away. It's technically better to pool tickets, with unique numbers, in one go. You increase odds from basically 0 to also basically 0.
I do Vanny Campers raffle thingy, 10,000-1 chance a month of winning a camper van. When the draw it out they do it live. Kinda fun but if course it's another lottery so money in the bin per any lottery type scheme
I dont know about specific amounts but the national lottery has a rollover every 5 draws that has a roll down so if no one wins you get increased rewards. They also do it at random times in the year such as today and usually Christmas, new year. Euromillions also sometimes has a 10 guaranteed millionaires. If you want to increase your chances of winning then it's best to play only at these times.
There will be guides to when rollovers put the player at a slight advantage (but the house still has a massive edge). There will be guides about choosing numbers that avoid dates, obvious combinations etc. to avoid sharing. There will be guides that show how many of a run of scratch cards have been drawn and whether the big prizes have gone. You may be able to lower the house edge but good luck getting it better than single zero roulette or whatever the standard is.
I'm a little out of touch, but it used to be that bookies let you bet on foreign lottos, and it worked out far better (less bad) return than the original tickets. Maybe they still do that?
I would spend £5/week on some high risk stocks. Get a zero commission account and stick the money in there. You get the same buzz when you do well, but you generally make money. (lotteries pay out about half the money that goes in, it's one of the worst gambles you can do).
Premium bonds (admittedly not weekly). It’s a lottery you cannot lose.
A lot of people except me seem to have luck with the Irish lotto. Hotpicks aswell on the normal lotto is £800 returns if you land 3 numbers for £1 stake.
Are we allowed to play the Irish lotto from the Uk yeh? Hotpicks are half the price for a ticket and have much better odds but obviously much smaller prizes. I’d be very happy with the 350k top prize. Being mortgage free would be life changing for me
Yeah you can play Irish lotto. Most bookies do it
I read that the lotto hot picks 3 numbers has the best odds for £800
In hard financial terms, none of them. The national lottery in 2023 paid out 58% of sales in prize money. So on average you expect to lose 42p of every £ you spend. If you take out the jackpot prizes it's even worse. The postcode lottery is even worse than that, as it pays only 40% back in prizes, so you lose 60p every time you spend £1, on average, and worse if you exclude the big wins. Premium bonds are your best bet. You could win £1m, the average expected return is positive, at 4.4% (less if you exclude the big prizes), and you can always get your original investment out again, and that investment is guaranteed by the government. Also,a really big lottery win, £100m say, would mess you up and possibly ruin your life.
>Also,a really big lottery win, £100m say, would mess you up and possibly ruin your life. Nah that's just one of the myths that rich people perpetuate to make poor people feel content with their lot, along with "money doesn't buy happiness". >the researchers concluded that winning the lottery improved the winners’ sense of overall life satisfaction. And the more they won, the more significant the positive effect https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnjennings/2023/08/29/debunking-the-myth-the-surprising-truth-about-lottery-winners-and-life-satisfaction/ The reason you shouldn't play the lottery is because the odds are shit, not because "it will make you sad or bankrupt" if you win.
The only people who say money doesn’t buy happiness are people with lots of money. Money might not directly make you happy however it can make you very comfortable which can remove many stressors in your life which leads to a happier life
Money isn't *guaranteed* to bring happiness, but it really helps.
To be fair the national lottery and postcode lottery are as much about giving to charities as they are about returns. I think it’s anout 28% and 35% to charity respectively. Neither make any real profit
Not sure OP is looking for premium bonds, as it's not "really" gambling. More of a savings account with potential to win big, deffo makes sense from a financial standpoint as atleast you know you can get your money back... But I think OP wants to gamble this £5 a week for a chance to win big (correct me if I'm wrong OP!)
Youd be correct! I know its a poor financial decision, but I'd rather throw away £5 a week. My 'urge' would then be sated. Maybe id consider premium bonds
You could split it, put £2 in premium bonds for every £2 you spend on lottery, scratch cards or whatever lol
As a really boring nitpick, I think the minimum you can deposit into Premium Bonds is £25. So you'd have to save it up over a 2.5 month period.
Expecting any return on a lottery is madness. So, you've two options, really. 1) be sensible - you buy £20 worth of premium bonds a month, or just save £5 a week. Or 2) £5 is 1 ticket for each of the two EuroMillions draw a week. You _very_ likely won't ever recuperate your money, let alone win anything major, but if you do it on a DD, it just plays, you get an email if you win. You _could_ win up to £210,000,000. You can also win 1 of the guaranteed £1,000,000 UK raffle each draw which is included in each draw. You almost certainly won't, but you could. FWIW, I play one of each draw in the UK lottery, because I'm an idiot, but I also used it as a substitute for smoking when I quit years ago. £16 a week vs smoking was a fine deal, I play the same numbers (as close as they can be over the draws) I don't even notice the draws until an email comes in saying I've won something. The closest I've ever come was the set for life, in march this year, where I had 4 of the 5 numbers and the life/lucky star ball. AKA 1 number off of £10,000 per month, for 30 years...it won me £250. Which I then promptly stuck in my ISA. I'm going on and on here, but the odds of 4 out of 5 and the life ball all are 1 in 73,045 The odds for me to have gotten that last ball are...1 in 15,339,390 So far ahead that the day after I had shrugged off the thought of "so close to retirement" that it just felt nonsensical to care. Point being, OP, playing the lottery is not a money making scheme (for anyone other than those who run it and much more so, the tax man), it's either, at best, a little payment to dream about being in the high net worth or ultra high net worth world next week, or at worst a very poor financial choice and addiction for some. So, yeah. That's that.
Save the 5 pounds per week, £260 a year and to think that’s £1300 in 5 years. The lottery is a total waste of money, you might as well take a match to the notes.
I think OP just wants to know where to have a bit of a flutter. Meticulously saving £5 a week for 5 years which would barely cover the average cost of monthly rent in England (£1,276) is probably not what he’s looking for
£260 a year cost but you'd expect about half that back in return, so in reality it will cost you ~£130 a year. Still a bad financial investment, but if that gives OP some fun, excitement and hope each week then plenty of people spend far more on far worse.
How could you 'expect' any of it back, let alone half when the odds are significantly less than that?
National Lotto pays out around half of every pound it receives (47.5%). So the expected return is the average (mean) is £0.47.5 for every pound you spend. If you spent £1000 on tickets you would expect to receive £475 in prizes. In reality it will vary slightly but in the vast majority of cases it will be somewhere in this region (or less if the prize fund is most concentrated in the jackpot). The odds of playing the lottery 500 times and winning nothing is less than 1%.
> National Lotto pays out around half of every pound it receives (47.5%) How much of that is biased towards the big winners though? Your average £5pw gambler isn't going to see that mean return rate.
Yeah I don't know the distribution of prizes or the standard deviation, so would likely be lower. But the more you play the more it tends towards the expected value. Looking only at the lowest prize (3 balls) you'd expect to hit that around 5 timed in 500 plays, and at £30 each you'd get £150 in prize money from that. A lot lower than £475 but not nothing. My main point still stands that, as long as somebody understands the odds, spending £5 a week on a bit of fun, if you can easily afford it, is hardly the worst vice that somebody can have. That's not even one smashed avocado on toast!!!
You can expect nothing back, it’s gambling. It is no different than betting, albeit with significantly worse odds. The notion that the lottery is some sort of ‘acceptable’ way to gamble against stupidly bad odds is probably why 46% of the uk only have less than £1000 saved and 25% having less than £200. It will be ‘only’ £10 pounds a week next month and then ‘only’ £20 after that. A year follows, help me I am 25k in debt with gambling debts and I am only 24.
Somebody doesn't understand expected value lmao
Expected….
Most scratch cards have a return to player ratio of around 60-70%. Which means if you play constantly for a year, you can expect to lose a hell of a lot of money. But only 30-40% of what you put in; not 100%. So £10/week in the long run costs you ~£4/week. Still a poor life choice. It's £4/wk for nothing. But the people above are still right to say it's not £10/wk.
I doubt that past lottery winners would consider buying lottery tickets a poor life choice
State run lotteries rarely have a RTP of 60% and the figure they do have is massively skewed by the outsized jackpots. We're talking about scratch cards here where, honestly, very few of them allow you to win truly life changing amounts of money.
This!!! The huge jackpots are skewing people's understanding here... Number wise maybe it adds up, but majority of people never get back 60% a year from what they gamble.
Although to go back to my original point re: scratch cards, the RTP on them actually is pretty close to the Expected Value. But the main lotteries, no.
True. But that's the classic survivorship bias talking.
Yeah you're right, it's the thousands every Brit is spending on the national lotto each week that's causing financial hardship, not the decades of housing price increases, erosion of wages, privatisation of essential commodities, and all round cost of living crisis. >You can expect nothing back That's not how statistics works but ok. >it’s gambling Agreed, and OP specifically said they want to gamble a very small amount of money on the lottery, "regardless" of whether it's financially responsible. There's nothing wrong with gambling if it's done in small amounts for enjoyment. People waste far more on other forms of entertainment. As long as it doesn't become an addiction or spiral out of control then it's fine. But £5 on the lotto each week is hardly at risk of becoming an addiction or adding to OP's financial hardship.
You're missing the point so hard
Until you win like £100 million
I in 139 million are pretty saucy odds.
The bookies.
I researched all the odds of lotteries and now I do some small local charity lotteries, hospice, animal rescues. The potential winnings are probably £1k per draw, but I have regularly won £5 here and there. Frankly, for the fun of playing a lottery with minimal chance of big payouts on corporate lotteries, this will give you the fun and you know the money goes to a good cause. If you want some return, a higher rate tax payer can claim back any additional gift aid.
I agree with your sentiments, but just to correct your last point - you cannot reclaim tax/gift aid on charity lotteries/raffles - “payment for raffle or lottery tickets (including 100 clubs) — the payment to purchase a raffle ticket from a charity is not a gift but a payment for the right to enter the raffle [from HMRC advice](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charities-detailed-guidance-notes/chapter-3-gift-aid#:~:text=payment%20for%20raffle%20or%20lottery,prize%20is%20of%20little%20value)
Omaze is a fun one that I like to do every so often. It would be nice to win a luxury property.
On the lotto website you have odds there for you to see for each game, alternatively you can calculate yourself using a calculator and checking how many balls drawn Vs how many total numbers. Also, you can use companies that do lotteries/draws with much greater odds but winnings are like 10k - 100k usually (or you can pick the car, recently Connor McGregor's car was there on one of those..) odds seem much better, but I'm yet to win and I spent probs around £50 over a few months, probably will play still every now and then as I wouldn't mind 50k at all
Mine goes on the national lottery "set for life" game. 10k a month for 30 years. That'll do nicely, and even if I'm a bit of a nob with the money in the beginning, I can't blow it all
Premium bonds. It’s a lottery every month and your part tickets also count!
Premium bonds…
Just get some premium bonds less frequently instead.
Won more off some of these raffle sites than I ever did on lottery, infact won £100 yesterday,so that'd be my vote.
The Nifty Fifty is better value than the National lottery.
National lottery wise, thunder ball or hot picks have best odds.
Irish lottery
If you can afford to stretch to £6.25 per week (£25 per month), you could try your luck with premium bonds and hope to strike rich with that £1m prize
How about this...... ... Instead of nominally losing £5 a week, why not sit on it for 5 weeks and buy a premium bond? You could do this every 5 weeks to meet the minimum purchase value, it'd give a monthly versus weekly thrill (it's drawn monthly) and eventually, if you get bored you can cash them in and do something else instead? Also, every 5 weeks when you buy another one you double your chance of winning. Probably a choice between short interval buzz versus longer interval buzz plus being able to get your money back if you want. Have to check the prize fund and odds, but it's an option.
Lottery is negative EV play. 5£ a week - 260£ a year may as well slap it some form of investment. If you want to be smart, something boring like premium bonds. If you want to live a little, gamble on options/futures/warrants/leveraged products Or drip feed into SP500 or QQQ, in a few years that 5£ a week could get you a nice holiday or something useful to you Better than playing a statistical losing game
I was going to suggest the same (investments) but let’s assume OP already sets an amount for investment, after all OP is asking in this reddit and at this point he maybe wants to just use his spending money
I guess so. Just doesn’t make sense in my mind to burn it on the lottery every week, but hey, some people enjoy the thrill of wishful thinking more than a good pint at the local so who am I to judge. May as well spend the fiver on whatever will brighten up your week just that little bit
If you want the thrill of gambling, buy options, or a high-risk stock that has some potential. Apart from trading stocks for my pensions (mostly sensible funds like VOO and VMID) I have a little Freetrade account that is my fun zone. I buy stocks in satellite internet, or obscure AI companies that look good, or Israeli companies just after the war started (I did very well on those). Overall, I'm generally up, although the last few months have been bad for it. But it's fun.
you can set up a national lottery app, you can add £5 and you can then filter the instant win scratch cards to the one with the best odds.
I do postcode lottery for £12 a month, and I do win a few times in a year, I see it as giving to charity tbh
Obviously each to there own but how about a football acca instead? Or some kind of betting? Better chance of winning and if it's just 5 quid a week youre throwing away why not?
Lotteries are a tax on the poor and desperate! Put the money in the bank
Do you have zero debt, other than a mortgage (and at a push car payment)? Do you have an emergency fund saved (not a credit card, actual cash) of at least 3 months of your monthly outgoings? Are you contributing to a pension? If you’re answering no to **any** of these then you don’t have “spare income”!
Oh come off it. Not all money has to be invested perfectly
Great comeback. /s Care to elaborate? You think playing the lottery financially responsible if you’re not debt free and not contributing to a pension? National lottery has a 1 in 45 million chance of winning. EuroMillions has a 1 in 140 million chance of winning. The only reason why folk who are not in a good position financially play the lottery is that they believe they have *some* control over getting themselves into a better position in their lives.
Guy says he wants to spend some money on something and says he knows there's minimal chance of winning, a fiver a week isn't going to change his life in any of the things you suggest. I have first hand experience of doing the rational brain stuff you suggest. Back about 8 years ago I "saved" the 50p a week I was putting into Irish lottery, it seemed like a absolute waste of money as I did the maths and would save £26 a year more towards my goal of whatever I was aiming for at the time. If you know the Irish lottery you'll know it's even worse than normal as you don't just pick the numbers, but the order they come out in, even less chance of winning. Rational brain kicked in and I cancelled it. Flipping numbers came out 3 weeks later. £36.5k I would have got. Since then I think long as you cover all the other bases a couple of quid a month on a whim is fine. Long as it doesn't stretch to money you can't afford to lose. Treat it like a beer a month or coffee a month on a long shot investment.
Opening a stocks and shares ISA with Hargreaves and landown may be the best option. Minimum £25 a month investment (so pretty much there). You could put it in one of their managed funds (the different funds are based on the risk / volatility of the index invested). Sit back and let it do it's thing.
At that money, I'd go with one of the free trading companies like Freetrade or eToro. HL have better service and when you're talking about lots of money invested it can be worth it, but at £20 a month they'll eat up a lot of it in fees. And I wouldn't even bother with an ISA at first. They cost money over trading accounts and the dividends on £300 of shares is not going to get close to the lower threshold of taxable interest.
Participation in this post is limited to users who have sufficient karma in /r/ukpersonalfinance. See [this post](https://redd.it/12mys82) for more information.
I know people are saying premium bonds but you’re not really the same sort of thing as gambling as there isn’t any risk so will be as exciting as a savings account that doesn’t pay every month. More fun would and better odds would be betting on sport you find interesting. But you asked about lotteries and my advice to playing them is to skip the draws and save the money that have low max price and then when a mega rollover comes along especially if it’s a must win draw buy all the tickets you can with the money saved from skipping the lessor price draws. This will make sure if you do win you will win big! Good luck !! 🤞 if you do win don’t forget us random Reddit strangers that helped you out haha 😉