Saving and Investing vs. Playing the Lottery

While investing can sometimes seem like playing the lottery, one thing is certain: you’ve got much better odds of building wealth through diversified and consistent investments than you do by winning your fortune in the lottery.

I’ve never been much of a lottery player, mostly because I’d rather get something else for my dollar than a slim chance at wealth. About the only time I play the lottery is if someone gives me a scratch off ticket as a gift (which is then actually fun because hey, it’s their dollar) or if there’s a group going in on the lottery at work. The group thing bugs me, so I’m glad it doesn’t happen very often.

But have you ever wondered about the difference between even just saving up $1 per day for a year, and spending a dollar a day on the lottery for a year? A reader sent in a link to the Mega Millions Simulator that will give us a good idea on the lottery part.

For the savings, let’s just assume we don’t even make any interest. So, at the end of the year, you’d have $365 if you saved $1 per day.

See Also

For the lottery, I used the simulator to play 365 games at $1 each, using the same numbers for each game. I did this a few times, and the results varied from a high “win” of $39 to a low “win” of $15. Total. In other words, I lost between $350 and $326 in the experiments.

Yup, savings definitely beats playing the lottery, and investing has a great shot at it too, especially if you’re diversified.

View Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

© 2023 BLUNTMONEY. All Rights Reserved | Disclaimer

Scroll To Top
Skip to content