Anyone here run a lottery syndicate?

whiteguineapig

hootie , please go with the standing order from everyone directly to your bank
that is so much easier than the cash way

newcook

To be honest I’d be tempted (and mainly to cover my own back in case you got the big win) to email them once the monies have been paid saying ‘the below have paid’ and ‘the below have not paid and therefore will be void of any winnings this month’.

It will be sods law that if you do win big and theres one person who hasn’t put in that they will get some bigwig solicitor to say they did give you the money and its your word against theirs that they didn’t.

webclinician

I work in the NHS and we had a group that run for a brief few months.

The main problem is collecting money. A few gets funny when asked about payment and if not included, will comment about not being trusted to pay up. So I paid up in one person's behalf and he didn't actually pay up, laughing his way when being asked.:mad:

I stopped collecting then and few of us decided to run a proper lottery syndicate online with moneybookers and online banking. Main advantage is we don't have to keep reminding anyone and if they don't pay up then they don't absolutely play.

4 months on and our site is on top of google as a lottery syndicate and we are getting an average 10 new members a month. We are playing 640 tickets this month. Keeping our fingers crossed is better than being crossed:j

You know what is actually the best thing, knowing that hundreds or even thousands of tickets gives you higher chance but the odds are...winning jackpot is more of luck. Dream less and work more is the motto of the day.

webclinician

pimento wrote: »

I run a small one (there are six of us) and we play eight weeks at a time, Saturday only. No pay no play is my big rule but the one time I did take someone's numbers out because he hadn't paid (he was on leave but I figured that was his problem, he knew we played every eight weeks, I'd sent him an email reminding him and he had his BlackBerry on so...) he created merry hell saying that just because he hadn't paid that didn't mean he wasn't still a part of the syndicate.
The other five backed me up and I ended up disbanding the syndicate and making a new one without him. No problems since.

One of our players is in Canada and pays me by PayPal and one works in another building and I get a bank transfer from him.

It runs OK apart from the fact that we're not millionaires yet.

Just piece of advice, make sure that you are not using your paypal account for business. If paypal finds out you are using Paypal for gambling they will immediately sudpend it.

Hootie19

Thank you all.

I have decided (I think!) that I want to continue to collect cash in person. I have drawn up a form, with each person's name, amount paid, the date it was paid, and a space for their signature. Then, when they give me their money, they sign next to it. If their signature, or someone else's signature if they have given their money to someone else to pay me on their behalf, is not next to their name, then they haven't paid.

I do quite like the idea of a standing order from each person into a bank account, but not into my personal one. I wonder if it is feasible to open a basic bank account that they could pay into, and I could use the money to buy tickets online?

There are now 25 of us in the syndicate, and I think that's enough. We pay £2 a week each, so that is £50 a week to play.

I am going to suggest that I buy 16 lucky dips for Wednesdays and Saturdays each week, and Plus Five them. I think that makes a total spend of £48, leaving £2 for a Lucky Dip for a Friday EuroMillions draw.

Then if I don't get everyone's money in time, I have proof (from the signed form) that they haven't paid and are not entitlted to take part in any prizes for that month (they're not getting the chance to send money in late - it's either on time or they don't play) and I will just reduce the amount of lottery lines and possibly increase the number of EuroMillions lucky dips.

Jeez, this is such a headache of a thing!

I think I'm going to suggest we keep our winnings and pay out once, or maybe twice a year. I can keep a spreadsheet showing how much of each win each person is entitled to, and that way those who may not have paid, don't participate in anything they're not entitlted to.

Oohhh, I'm such a hardnose!! Whether this will work, will remain to be seen. I think the biggest headache will be in putting it all down in an agremeent and getting everyone to sign it.

webclinician

Hootie19 wrote: »

Thank you all.

I have decided (I think!) that I want to continue to collect cash in person. I have drawn up a form, with each person's name, amount paid, the date it was paid, and a space for their signature. Then, when they give me their money, they sign next to it. If their signature, or someone else's signature if they have given their money to someone else to pay me on their behalf, is not next to their name, then they haven't paid.

I do quite like the idea of a standing order from each person into a bank account, but not into my personal one. I wonder if it is feasible to open a basic bank account that they could pay into, and I could use the money to buy tickets online?

There are now 25 of us in the syndicate, and I think that's enough. We pay £2 a week each, so that is £50 a week to play.

I am going to suggest that I buy 16 lucky dips for Wednesdays and Saturdays each week, and Plus Five them. I think that makes a total spend of £48, leaving £2 for a Lucky Dip for a Friday EuroMillions draw.

Then if I don't get everyone's money in time, I have proof (from the signed form) that they haven't paid and are not entitlted to take part in any prizes for that month (they're not getting the chance to send money in late - it's either on time or they don't play) and I will just reduce the amount of lottery lines and possibly increase the number of EuroMillions lucky dips.

Jeez, this is such a headache of a thing!

I think I'm going to suggest we keep our winnings and pay out once, or maybe twice a year. I can keep a spreadsheet showing how much of each win each person is entitled to, and that way those who may not have paid, don't participate in anything they're not entitlted to.

Oohhh, I'm such a hardnose!! Whether this will work, will remain to be seen. I think the biggest headache will be in putting it all down in an agremeent and getting everyone to sign it.

Good for you.

I am running a lottery syndicate myself so just to answer some of your queries.
Re- bank account and standing order
- collecting from people personally is hard and by standing order, it is their responsiblity more than yours.

One way you can get a bank account which is not your personal is through commercial banking. You will need however to make a limited company to make this easier. I think limited company does not cost much, it gives you some priviledge as a company and when things go wrong, your assets are more or less protected e.g if someone sues you for millions for not betting on their ticket and it could have won.

With your agreement perhaps it is better if you look on the National lottery agreement and make modifications as needed be.

Re prizes: every 6 months is ok but perhaps you may consider paying them off when winnings reach at least a certain amount.

You must however specify when is the cutoff date for payment in your syndicate and stick with it.

You have mentioned buying tickets online, I would assume you will print it off before the draw so everyone can see it.

With the amount you mentioned, how will you accomodate people who wanted to bet on regular numbers?

I think you should be specific as well in how you are going to buy tickets. Buying tickets on and off depending on how much you get can be interpreted in different ways.

Good luck on your syndicate, it's hard work but someone got to do it.

lowlitmemory

All sounds very complicated

I am in a syndicate, there are 8 of us but we are all in the same office and all very good at paying up. We pay £10 each every four weeks and buy tickets for Friday's Euromillions from that (come on, tomorrow...). Any winnings are kept and we spend them on the Christmas party. We've never been in a situation where we have ended up with more than about £150 at the end of the year, so it's easy enough to spend on a meal each plus a few drinks. If we won significantly, I think we would discuss it and split the spare cash 8 ways.

I wouldn't want to be in a syndicate with colleagues who worked in a completely different place myself, I think it makes it a bit more open to abuse. We will put in money for each other (or use the accumulated money, to be more accurate) if someone is off sick or on leave but we have NEVER had a problem with paying back.

Good luck to you!

slamdance

I run a syndicate with 17 of us, I unusually have no problem with giving credit because we are all trusting friends and spread around the world and I have a rough £20 upper limit that generally works but a couple of folks took me for a tenner.... I only accept people I can trust.... but I must have missed a couple.... We play £34 a week but different amounts each, split proportionally of course, split and credited every week. We play UK Lotto, Plus5, Thunderball, EuroMillions sometimes, OzLotto and now we play 49s and it might be a high street bookie game with no huge jackpot but yesterday it gave a payout equivilent to four lotto balls.... for a 25p stake. Our best payout since we started in Feb 09.
We consisantly win back 31% of our stake and our overall ticket price is 41p.
Write your own syndicate agreement. Be bold. Not so tricky.
Good luck.
DM

juliebunny

I used to run a small syndy at work and had everyone sign an agreement. I don't think it matters what the rules are, as long as everyone agrees to them. People still messed me around with the money and the members said I was being mean to people who were off sick etc - other problem, one of the members was our boss so what do you do when she misses her pound? Then one week I was really busy and asked one of the other girls to get a ticket as she was going out for a fag (right by the lotto shop) and she refused so I knocked it on the head and no one else has taken it over since! I now do an informa 'whip round whoever is in the office' lotto on Fridays (we are on half staff fridays) which excludes that girl!!

Suewre

There are currently 10 of us in our syndicate, we play 4 lines, Wednesday and Friday, 8 weeks at a time. We do tend to leave it a bit late to check the numbers and put on the next lot so there is often someone off, if there is, someone will put in for them (if more than one off, then someone different will put in for them so no one has to pay too much).

All winnings are used to reduce the next payment (unfortunately we haven't ever won enough for a pay out). Once someone was off sick, and didn't return, so the person who paid out double got twice the reduction.

If we do have a big win, I think the company might have a problem as only 3 people in our department are not in the syndicate, not that the boss worries about that as he is in the syndicate as well!