Playing the lottery is all about dreaming big. Landing the million pound prize, buying a house, yacht, luxury sports car, retiring immediately and heading into retirement to spend the rest of our lives in peace.
It could be you as the slogan says and there are weekly winners but for many of us, that dream may never become a reality. We still buy our tickets but is the hope still there or are we just purchasing on autopilot?
Odds Increasing
Lottery players are responding to changes in rules via their state or national provider by heading away from traditional play and looking at online lottery providers who they feel are offering a better deal.
A number of lotteries around the world have actually made it harder to a big prize. In 2014, the UK National Lottery increased the amount of numbers involved in the draw while doubling the cost of a ticket from £1.00 to £2.00 at the same time. Suddenly, after 20 years of picking numbers between one and 49, an extra ten digits were added to twice-weekly tickets.
An extra ten numbers may seem like a modest increase but that’s not the case when you consider the effect that this has on the odds. Six matching numbers have always been required to trigger the main jackpot but with just 49 on the board, odds of landing the biggest prize stood at one in 13 million. Choosing between one and 59 now sees those odds lengthen to one in 45 million.
The organisers Camelot will argue that they are promising to create additional millionaires through the raffle element of their draw and it’s true that the bottom prize has more than doubled to £25 but is winning becoming such a distant reality that customers are being driven away.
Replicated
The UK approach is just one example but it’s being replicated right across the world with national lotteries becoming much tougher.
The issue for the operators lies in dwindling resources and that taps into the question of why anyone will play the lottery in the first place. Of course, there is that ultimate dream of landing the multi-million pound jackpot but players have to be given hope. After weeks and months of not even landing the smallest of prizes, it’s human nature for some people to have that hope extinguished and at that point they will simply walks away.
Elsewhere, Powerball in the US has produced a similar change to that of the UK to the point where the odds of winning the top jackpot have drifted to one in 175 million to one in 292 million. Someone does win at those extreme odds but for the vast majority, it’s about keeping that dream alive.
Unfortunately, that dream is a distant one for most with the chances of getting paid the smallest $4.00 cash prize, believed to be at around 38.2. Once again, players are losing faith with their national lotteries but what are the alternatives?
Head online
For players that stay loyal to their national draws, these can still be played online but at the same time, there are alternatives that can be accessed from all over the world. Charity draws are particularly popular for obvious reasons and while the top prizes may be smaller, the chances of winning are enhanced.
The main point is that players have choice and in some cases the jackpot win is backed up by a host of smaller cash pots that are far easier to pick up. The dream is still alive even if it means being a little more creative in terms of pinning it down.
