National Lottery at Christmas.

omits

With the extra prizes announced on some of the draws, has anyone worked out if the odds of winning are any better?

gadgetmind

I doubt you'll get many responses here as this part of the forum is for those saving and investing rather than those blowing what little they have on gambling.

But good luck.

chris_m

My odds are just the same as ever - I don't buy a ticket so I have a 100% chance of retaining my stake.

gadgetmind

I've never bought one and never will.

Reasons -
1) Statistics say I will lose. Good enough for me.
2) If you want to be rich, do it the hard but achievable way by using your brain and working your socks off. The lottery did a lot of harm to the British "get off your backside" mentality IMO.

JohnRo

I used to do a line every draw (wed, sat) and won the odd tenner here and there and then won a 3 figure amount this summer just as they announced the intent to charge £2 a line so stopped completely. It now feels like winning a tenner every month without fail.. I never was going to pay two quid a pop so that doesn't count.

Gromitt

I play every week by direct debit. My overall loss from playing over the last year is less than £10 (yes I keep a P/L account for it), which is acceptable to me. In October I won £25, so that'll pay for another 12 weeks.

gadgetmind

Sheesh!

If you want millions, work for them! And the first step is to stop dreaming about the easy route.

grey_gym_sock

not worth investigating, as the odds are clearly still massively against the punter.

i've never bought a ticket, either. when the lottery started, i even cashed in my £5 holding in premium bonds, as a form of silent protest

AkaBreeno

Luckily my memorys so bad I keep forgetting to buy a ticket so I can easily say I've never spent more than a tenner (in around three years!) on it. :P

matttye

gadgetmind wrote: »

Sheesh!

If you want millions, work for them! And the first step is to stop dreaming about the easy route.

Nothing wrong with doing both, but of course the lottery should not be part of a plan!

omits

Oh dear!, why have only sensible people replied? I was only seeking opinion on the investment odds as I didn't understand the odds of the increased number of prizes they were offering at Christmas. Still, you are all right it's futile to expect to get rich and yes, I did work for 40 years (mostly for 11 hours per day) and earnt my full pension. I do spend a bit of money on gambling as a (irresponsible?) part of investing what little cash I've got. Because the Thunderball is still only £1 I do that as the odds are also better. For JohnRo, I decided to do it once per year to reduce the odds and won 66% of my stake. I am not addicted but I can see how people can loose and putting in just one line per week is a total waste of money.

As far as I can determine the chances of winning on the Christmas draws with the increased raffle offer is no better than any other week. If 5 million punters buy then 1 ticket then the raffle is 5m:1. If they offer 500 raffle chances then the odds are still 1000:1 so you are still unlikely to pick one from that.

So I end up with "It could be you (but likely won't)".