Lottery Syndicates??

PP1984

I've just had a facebook ad on my newsfeed about an online lottery syndicate. Has anyone had any experience with these types of set ups? It seems reasonable at the face of it, but is it just a waste of time/money??...
The one I am looking at is thelottosyndicate.co.uk
Anyone signed up to this before?
Cheers.

Antispam

Personally i stay clear. I dont trust facebook ads so I block them with facebook ads block and two anything with lottery sounds like a scam or mlm scheme

Browntoa

http://www.financebanter.co.uk/uk-finance/8579-lottery-syndicate-guy-breaking-any.html

PP1984

Thanks. That thread looks like from a few years ago and it looks like its not the really the same thing, but was the same web address.. could be the same person organising it though? I won't dive into it anyway

Browntoa

the maths is the same , it does not improve your chances of winning

PP1984

I thought the more tickets you buy, the more chance you have of winning? I can't afford to buy 50 tickets myself, but I can buy a share of 50 tickets for £6, and if any of them win then I get my share of the winnings... that's how I read it anyway. Maybe it's just advertising blurb.
I think I get why it improve your odds of winning the big bucks, but my concern is if they are legit and will actually pay up in the case of a win.

scaredofdebt

It does increase your odds but the winnings will be less by a larger factor due to costs etc.

For example for every £100 you pay to play the normal lottery you will get back £50 for example - I don;t know the exact figure.

Playing via a syndicate you will probably get something like £40 back for every £100 you play with due to their costs, this will vary of course depending on the syndicate.

But you should find you win more often, just that the wins are smaller as you have to share it with the other people and taking costs into account.

I was thinking of setting up a website to run a lottery syndicate but not sure about the legal side of it and then how do you get people to trust you? With difficulty obviously!

wesleyad

Syndicates are actually mathematically worse for you than playing by yourself due to the game being loaded in favour of the lottery company. It sounds counterintuitve I'll try to explain.

Imagine a 2 ball lottery which has 100 combinations. It pays out £50 jackpot (if this was the UK lotto it's closer to £10, which shows what a bad bet it is, but ignore that).

Let's take the 2 extremes:
1. You play alone you have a 1/100 chance of winning £50, which could happen.
2. You have a syndicate which buys all 100 numbers. In this situation the syndicate is guaranteed the £50, but has paid £100, so has lost £50.

So situation 1 you have a likely loss, but a chance at a win (the whole idea of a lottery really), whereas situation 2 leaves you with a guaranteed loss.

Obviously syndicates never get anywhere near situation 2 as there are so many numbers, but its still disadvantageous, and the bigger the syndicate the worse it gets.