Your odds of winning 1st prize in Megamillions is 1 in 175,711,536
Your odds of winning 1st prize in Powerball is 1 in 146,107,962
In a state lottery where 6 numbers are drawn from a range of 49 numbers the odds of winning are about 1 in 14 million.
In a state lottery where 6 numbers are drawn from a range of 59 the odds of winning are about 1 in 45 million.
Your odds of winning the California Lottery raffle at the end of last year was 1 in 650,000.
The best general odds I have seen to win a million dollars by buying a lottery ticket as you seem to want this to be is to look for a Million dollar raffle and play.
I would not be surprised if some scratch off $1million game exists - but I don’t see how any of us can claim to do a full analysis of every scratch off in existence- they appear and disappear regularly and all have different odds … if you find a scratch off game with a million dollar prize, just look at the odds I have never seen a lottery that didn’t have the odds pretty well displayed
Your odds of winning $1 million in Deal or No Deal is exactly 1 in 26. Nobody has come close to beating those odds. So, find Mr. Howie Mandell and start shaking his bald-headed body for all it’s worth. There’s a good chance you’ll get a million in less time than any of the other methods in the thread.
Edit to add: Oh, and no initial outlay of cash, either.
Even though I’m retired with a good income and just do whatever I want all day long, I too hate your guts.
And I’m another one for putting it away and waiting. Not as sexy perhaps but it’s sure.
Richard Branson said that the best way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire, and then buy an airline company.
Seriously, there is one safe, secure, no-fail way to become a millionaire, but it does take time, effort and dedication. Make More Money Than You Spend. This is very different from what my parents taught me, which was Spend Less Than You Earn. SLTYE has a finite maximum - your earnings. MMMTYS has no upper limit. For best results, combine the two: keep a lid on expenses whilst raising the bar each year and soon you will be a millionaire.
To MMMTYS, look at what you spend now. Then assess what you need to change in your life to MMMTYS. For me, it was invest my efforts in my own company. For you, it might be invest in the time it takes to learn poker, or invest in the time it takes to learn a profession. Whatever you invest your time in, ask yourself once an hour every hour of every day: Is this the best use of my time to reach my goals? Can I think of a better way to invest this time? Invest your time wisely towards the goal of increasing your net worth, and you will indeed do so.
But surely, in calculating your chances of winning a million dollars on Deal or No Deal, you would have to take into account your chances of getting onto the show in the first place. That lengthens the odds considerably.
Yep, that’s the game. Dudes, yes, I know the odds at a lottery aren’t good, but that’s what the OP wants. After just one of us pointed out that the Lotto isn’t a good deal, then we should just answer his question. And, I think the Raffle is the answer.
Try borrowing a million dollars on margin with as little collateral as this guy seems to be willing to risk ($10,000? Less?) . Tell me how it goes and get back to me. Try getting a business loan where you tell the bank you’re going to spend it on lottery tickets, let me know how that works out.
No one is going to lend him a million dollars when he refuses to invest it in any prudent way, rejects good advice from all comers, and seems determined to piss it all away in the lottery of all things. Good lord, who would fund that?
You misunderstand me. I have never bought a lottery ticket.
My point was that you could try to make a million on the stock market - it’s certainly more likely than gambling.
And that if I invest in shares, there is a chance to borrow most of the money required by using the shares as security. (Which is pretty much how the Glazers bought Manchester United.)
You don’t need to spend $10,000, and it is still the best bet you have. Put $1 on any number. Every time you win put all that money on one number. Win four times in a row and you have 1.68 million dollars. Odds are 1 in 2 million (approximately). This beats out every lottery there other than the California lottery, but you have to pay $5 per ticket there and the expected value is still lower than roulette.
Seriously, if you want to max out your chances of winning $1 million with the least effort, then take one trip a year to a casino. Take the $110 you would have spent on lottery tickets that year. Place a 22 dollar bet on one roulette number. If you win then put it all on another number. You only need to win 3 times in a row to break a million. When you lose, start again with another $25.
This method gives you five chances at it with a final odds of 1 in 10719 that you will win a million dollars that year. This is more than an order of magnitude better than 100 plays at any of the $1 lotteries mentioned.
It doesn’t have to be a huge stupid waste of money to still be a stupid waste of money. If I think it would be fun to throw a dollar off of my balcony twice a week, it doesn’t make it a better investment than throwing off 100 dollars, it just means that my stupidity is costing me a little less.
Ceaser’s recently was in the news upping the max anyway bet in roulette to $3000. This gives the max payout as $105,000. The articles I saw said that this was the highest in Vegas.
But the article then goes on to say that other casinos will not set a hard limit but will evaluate things on a case by case basis when deciding to take a bet.
Assuming basic strategy (no card counting) and no bet limit, I make this closer to 1 in 147 (at 49% chance to win per hand, about what basic strategy gives you).
This is lower odds to succeed than the roulette at 1 in 120 or so, but success gives you $1.28 million instead of the $1.08 million from the roulette.
If you only wanted $1 million exactly, you could create a more sophisticated blackjack betting strategy that would succeed with exactly $1 million with better than 1 in 120 odds. I can’t be bothered to figure out exact odds though.
I haven’t read all the answers so this may be a repeat, but Pa and Md have had a raffle type lottery with the top prize being a million. I know in Md, there were 420,000 tickets sold at $20 a pop, and there were top prize four winners. So you had a 1 in 125,000 to win. Not too shabby.
