I want to win a million dollars, what should I play?

Factual Questions
41

[QUOTE=wolfman]
The math issue is a simple mistake, that I made.

The odds of a single number are 1 to 37, and the odds of a column are 1 to 2.167 to one. When you simply multiply those you end up with 80. But I forgot that’s “to” odds not “in” odds. which are actually 1 in 38 and 1 in 3.167. Which is where the 1 in 120 or so comes in.

And the fact that it gave a positive expectation, was the reason I realized I had made a mistake, and reason" it didn’t feel right".
[/QUOTE]

The trouble with the gambling routes to $1 million, is that at each step you’re risking more money. Any sane person would stop gambling long before reaching the target.

Obvious I know, but someone had to say it.

One option perhaps, is to gamble for a while, and then when you inevitably win a five-figure sum, invest it in something safe, like property. :slight_smile:

42

Play “The Game of Life” and go the college route. Soon you’ll be in Millionaire Acres!

43

[QUOTE=pravnik]
Play “The Game of Life” and go the college route. Soon you’ll be in Millionaire Acres!
[/QUOTE]

But don’t be irresponsible and have too many pink and blue pegs…they suck up your money like an oreck XL

44

It’s been calculated that the odds of winning the National Lottery here are worse than being hit by a meteorite.
Every week millions of people lose millions of pounds on this Lottery. Only half the money is returned as prizes. :frowning:

I on the other hand am well on the way to $1,000,000. It’s taken me 34 years of working, but there has been little risk. :cool:

45

Another option: in horse racing’s Pick Six (select six winners in a row), any day where no one hits the wager ($2 minimum), 75% of the amount bet on that day is carried over to the next day. After several days of the wager not being hit, the Pick Six pool can be well over a million dollars - this happens most often at the major California tracks. Hollywood Park had one a few months back that approached 5 million dollars in the pool. This situation can be one with a significant positive expectation, due to all the extra money in the pools.

The problems: Because the days with large carryovers are so well bet, it’s exponentially harder to hit it by yourself. Also, each race is not random and some horses are more likely to win than others in any given race, with commensurate lower payouts.

Still, it’s a game of skill with a positive expectation, which is rare. But it sounds like it wouldn’t meet your laziness tests, unless you picked random numbers.

46

[QUOTE=Will Repair]
Wait until a lottery jackpot exceeds the odds of winning then purchase all possible tickets.
[/QUOTE]

And pray no one else hits it as well, thereby killing all profit.

47

[QUOTE=commasense]
As others have said, playing the lottery is a Really Bad Idea[sup]TM[/sup]. Chances are as close to 100% as makes no difference that you will never again see any of the dollars that you play on the lottery. You might as well flush them down the drain.
[/QUOTE]

I am a believer that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math, but even I will state that this is blatantly no true. You will get some of your money back, but only a fraction of it. There are a lot of very small prizes. It keeps people coming back. It also helps them to fool themselves into thinking that they are winning over the long term.

Oh, and to be fair to the lottery when comparing odds we need to start with same amount of money in each case. So, you need to work up from $1 to $1 million playing roulette or whatever.

48

[QUOTE=glee]
I on the other hand am well on the way to $1,000,000. It’s taken me 34 years of working, but there has been little risk. :cool:
[/QUOTE]
There is a significant risk of your soul being beaten down after so long working for the man.

49

[QUOTE=gazpacho]
There is a significant risk of your soul being beaten down after so long working for the man.
[/QUOTE]

Since my job for the last 17 of those years has been teaching chess, roleplaying and computer games to schoolchildren :eek: :confused: :smiley: , my spirits are high!

50

[QUOTE=glee]
Since my job for the last 17 of those years has been teaching chess, roleplaying and computer games to schoolchildren :eek: :confused: :smiley: , my spirits are high!
[/QUOTE]

It’s come up before, but I just wanted to let you know that I hate you immensely.

:smiley:

51

[QUOTE=Tristan]
It’s come up before, but I just wanted to let you know that I hate you immensely.

:smiley:
[/QUOTE]

I supppose I shouldn’t tell you that, because my school is going over to Vista soon, we recently installed Civilisation 4 Warlords.
This afternoon, I spent hours practising it. Whilst being paid. :wink:

52

[QUOTE=glee]
I supppose I shouldn’t tell you that, because my school is going over to Vista soon, we recently installed Civilisation 4 Warlords.
This afternoon, I spent hours practising it. Whilst being paid. :wink:
[/QUOTE]

You have just been upgraded to “I hope your balls spontaneously drop off”. :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean, I surf the Dope and get paid for it, but not officially. :wink:

53

[QUOTE=conway]
1.) Find a stock that’s selling for $1 a share.
2.) Buy a million shares.
3.) Wait till stock hits $2 a share.
4.) Sell.
So easy…
[/QUOTE]

If you could buy a million shares at $1, you’d already have your million. Boy, a lot of math errors in this thread!

54

[QUOTE=hruka]
I don’t need 100 million, or even 10. I’d be quite content just winning 1 million dollars, which I could safely invest somewhere and get a nice boost to my annual income for the rest of my life on.
So what’s the best lottery for that (I like in New Jersey). Do I play something like Mega Millions, and hope for the 2nd prize? Or play some lottery specifically oriented towards 1 million dollars?
Help :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

As others have said, if you want a nice boost to your annual income for the rest of your life, the lottery is not the route to go. The game you want to play is the stock market.

Other paths are to invest a few tens of thousands into an education that leads to a high-paying profession, marry someone rich, a life of crime, etc. You can also signficantly less than one million dollars, and move to somewhere in the world where the dollar stretches very far. You can live very well in many nice areas for much less money.

All of those are more likely to achieve your goals than the lottery.

This leads to the obvious questions. How much money do you have, are you willing to risk, and how long are you willing to wait to win?

55

May I develop the gambling theme?

Suppose you decide to play roulette and find a table in Vegas that can pay out $1 million.
You can bet on a number, getting 35-1 odds if you win (although there are two zeroes on Vegas wheels, so you expect to actually lose money.)
So fortunately you win continually and amass about $30,000.
To win a million, you have to gamble the $30,000.
Your odds of losing are 37 in 38 (35 wrong numbers, plus the two zeroes). Are you really going to go for this?! :eek:

Similar problems apply to other roulette ‘systems’ and to other gamblimg games. You’ll always be facing poor odds…

56

[QUOTE=muttrox]
If you could buy a million shares at $1, you’d already have your million. Boy, a lot of math errors in this thread!
[/QUOTE]

Actually you could borrow the million to buy the stock and pay it back…

57

[QUOTE=glee]
Actually you could borrow the million to buy the stock and pay it back…
[/QUOTE]

Who’s gonna lend this guy a million bucks?

Maybe he could borrow two million, use one million to create a new identity for himself, and take off with a cool million.

58

Guys, really… why do you insist on making this so complicated?

I’m not going to invest $1 million dollars in $1 stocks. That’s #1, a huge risk, and #2, money I don’t have.

I’m not going to gamble $10,000 at roulette, because #1 I’m not looking to spend \

$10,000 right now, and #2 I have to go to casinos to gamble, and I’m looking for something convenient and easy.

I’m not going to invest $10,000 in the stock market, again – more money than we’re looking for here.

I liked the website with the lottery odds on it, kind of-- but I was hoping for some more analysis. Do I want a State Pick 5 lottery? Pick 3? 6? What about those scratch off games, any worth trying?

Things like horce-racing don’t work for me precisely because I’m not seeking to make a huge deal out of it, constantly monitoring how horses are doing and who is likely to win and such. I can make a thread here, monitor it for a week, and then have my lottery of choice for the next several years.

As to lottery being a huge waste of money, the problem is the lack of ‘huge’. $2 a week? $100 a year? That’s nothing compared to all the thousands I pay in taxes.

As to it being a tax for the uneducated, I’m not suggesting I make this my lifetime profession, nor do am I arguing that buying 2 tickets instead of 1 is a wise financial decision. However, buying just 1 ticket puts my odds of winning MUCH higher than any of yours, and costs me very very little, so I don’t mind.

So, once more – which lottery do I go with? Pick x number of balls? Scratch off games? I dunno.

59

[QUOTE=muttrox]
Who’s gonna lend this guy a million bucks?

[/QUOTE]

You’ve not heard of margin, then?

Margin buying is buying securities with some of one’s own cash together with cash borrowed from a broker. This has the effect of magnifying any profit or loss made on the securities. The securities serve as collateral for the loan.

Boy, a lot of money errors in this thread!

60

[QUOTE=hruka]
Guys, really… why do you insist on making this so complicated?

I’m not going to invest $1 million dollars in $1 stocks. That’s #1, a huge risk, and #2, money I don’t have.

[/quote]

The reason that it seems complicated to you is that there is no simple way to do this.
Also:
#1 It’s a better risk than a lottery. :smack:
#2 You don’t need $1 million. See my previous post.

[QUOTE=hruka]

However, buying just 1 ticket puts my odds of winning MUCH higher than any of yours, and costs me very very little, so I don’t mind.
.
[/QUOTE]

Much higher, huh?
The odds of a ticket winning a million on the UK lottery are about 1 in 14 million. Only 50% of the entry money is returned as prizes.

Costs very little, huh?
Your attitude (which is fine as long as you only spend money you can afford) is why lottery companies make millions.
Instead I put the equivalent money in a savings account and earnt interest on it. Which is why I have a second computer alongside this one. :smiley: