So ignoring any question about morality, it being a really poor gamble, it being a tax on hope, or just a stupid way to waste money:

If you are going to play the National Lottery which of its games has the best potential (compared to the stake) to bring you a significant win rather than just the odds of winning the jackpot?

Let’s say £100K counts as a significant win, I’m sure for some people here it’s probably not that much money but for most it would at least be something they needed to think carefully what to do with if not actually life changing.

Has anyone seen any blog or similar analysing this?

Discussion that stimulated this was trying to work out if the “set for life” game was actually better value for money than “euro millions”…

All the odds and prizes are on the lotto website – it’s very easy to work out which game has the least worst prize money:odds ratio for you.

Aren’t all the odds basically zero? Doesn’t stop me buying the odd ticket for euro millions when the jackpot has rolled over and there’s a big prize though.

Going to the bookies and sticking a quid on four numbers to come up should rake in more than on the lottery.

Going to the bookies and sticking a quid on four numbers to come up should rake in more than on the lottery.

Assuming the bookies roughly match the real odds, you’d win 1k ish.

A £2 stake on 5 numbers would net £110k but, unlike the lottery there would be no prize for 2 3 or 4 numbers at that so your chance of losing your stake is significantly higher.

All the odds and prizes are on the lotto website – it’s very easy to work out which game has the least worst prize money:odds ratio for you.

We had a look and couldn’t find all the information in an easy to consume format! So the odds of winning each of the prize tiers in the main lottery (Lotto) were fairly easy to find, but there wasn’t easy information on what typical winnings would be in each tier. I appreciate it’s complicated because they include the number of players that week, if there’s been multiple rollovers with no winner then it rolls down to lower tiers; but also because the number of winners each week determines the prize (eg the jackpot is estimated at 7.5M tonight, but if it comes out at some really common choice of numbers and 20 people have picked it the winnings will be 325k each. The same happens at the lower tiers. In roll over weeks the number of players goes up as people get suckered in for sexy sounding jackpot, so there’s more chance of you having to share your prize with more people.

It was at that point we decided it was too hard and someone will have a blog or YouTube on the topic! If anyone wants to take it even further the whole reason this came up was my mate had just won £30 on Lotto but he plays online – whenever he wins he “reinvests” those winnings in more tickets (I suspect that’s quite common for most small winners?), so assuming he still buys his usual weekly ticket and wins the expected rate of small winnings which lottery game is best value for money. Potentially a game with smaller big prizes but more small prizes leading to more “replays”, although it also seems to become a recursive problem – the number of tickets you have in the game depends how many small people wins you have had historically? Albeit if you are only buying one ticket a week it probably is so low as not to matter.

When it all started so many people I knew said “I don’t need tens of millions, a hundred thousand* would be huge for me” that I thought someone must have tried to answer the question which game suits the player looking to get lucky and win a particular value rather than looking to get incredibly lucky and win the jackpot all to themself.

* they didn’t all say 100k obviously, some said a million, some said 10k but the point was the same the headline grabbing number sucks people in – but are they being sucked towards the wrong game if they would genuinely be content with smaller winnings?

Going to the bookies and sticking a quid on four numbers to come up should rake in more than on the lottery.

Gosh, I didn’t even know you could bet on the lottery at a bookies.

I seem to get more small wins from “Set for Life” than the main lottery or euromillions. Two numbers gives you £5, and each line of five numbers costs £1.50. I do three lines so quite often get a free week.

I know it’s still a long shot to win, but hopefully a proportion of the £4.50 I’m spending a week is going to good causes, such as the Paralympic GB team, as they claim it is.

Thunderball and it only costs a quid.
But buy Premium Bonds and you never lose your stake.

Set for life second tier prize of £120k is probably the easiest to win at around 2m to 1 also the euromillions millionaire maker has fluctuating odds. Euromillions and lotto top prizes are at least 50m to 1.

There is a website called https://www.lottery.co.uk/thunderball/odds that has the odds.

My favoured approach is to play on the max rollover weeks, so far it’s a 50/50 split I’ve won (bottom prize) twice and lost twice, when I lose I normally get a bit back as you get £5 for 2 numbers.

Really though, lump in on an S&S ISA.

Got to be in it to win it.
The best mathematical minds have looked at this and, if there was a magic answer, they would have found it.
Everyone wants to be beat the house; good luck with that.
Other than that, carry on.

Lottery related but slightly different….

Is there any site that has a record of all the draw results, so eg you could put your favourite numbers in and it would tell ou from all previous results what you would have won if you played every week?

But buy Premium Bonds and you never lose your stake.

The best mathematical minds have looked at this and, if there was a magic answer, they would have found it.
Everyone wants to be beat the house; good luck with that.

You’ve both missed the premise of the question. It wasn’t is this a good investment or is there a way to ensure you win. It’s widely recognised that the the lottery is a mugs game (although some who play it may feel it’s at least in part a donation to good causes) – the premise was, if you want to play and maximise your chances of a very nice win rather than a jackpot which game should you play.

Really though, lump in on an S&S ISA.

You think there’s better odds on a S&S ISA turning a few pounds a week into £100k than the lottery. Without insider trading?

Same answer.

IIRC, from a Reddit AMA with someone who worked for a lottery company (albeit an American one), the answer to the question is the higher-priced scratchcards. You can check on the Lottery website to see which ones have the highest number of prizes remaining.

You think there’s better odds on a S&S ISA turning a few pounds a week into £100k than the lottery. Without insider trading?

The odds of turning a few pounds a week into £100K in an ISA are zero unless you do it for a 100 years or so
The odds of turning a few pounds a week into £100K are 1-2 million to one so much better than zero from ISA

The obvious difference with the Lottery is that you could in theory win £100K in the first week while your ISA would have returned £0.000001

The odds of turning a few pounds a week into £100K in an ISA are zero unless you do it for a 100 years or so

If you invested £4 a week into an S&S ISA earning the average 7%, for 100 years, you’d have over £1m.

I’ll get my coat…

Football accumulator. Bet on 15 matches you’ll be well over £100k.

If you invested £4 a week into an S&S ISA earning the average 7%, for 100 years, you’d have over £1m.

In 100 years time, not only can you not spend it; with inflation, you could probably afford the celebratory ice cream, but not the sprinkles.

If you invested £4 a week into an S&S ISA earning the average 7%, for 100 years, you’d have over £1m.

I’ll get my coat…

I wouldn’t get your coat yet. It is £1-2 not £4 and the point is it is a long time before you get £100K (40 years?) which I am guessing is not what the OP was after. Plus the inflation aspect nickc has point out.

Still, you carry on with your £100 a year ISA by all means…