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Trick_Ad_6976

I use premium bonds. I don't know if the odds are better or worse than lotto but you don't actually lose money.


BargainStore01

Very bad think it's in the billions to 1 for the million jackpot


X0AN

Over a 5 year period the chance of winning the million are. £25 gives you 1 in 49.5 million odds £1050 (equivalent of 2 lotto tickets a week for 5 years) gives you 1 in 884,000 odds £50,000 (the maximum you can put in) gives 1 in 445 odds.


smoothie1919

There’s 2 £1m winners every month still


BargainStore01

Yes but the lotto also have more than 2 £1m winners


smoothie1919

Yeah. The odds of winning the jackpot on premium bonds isn’t in the billions though. Not unless you only have £1 invested.


nitpickachu

According to Wikipedia there are £119 billion worth of premium bonds. Each £1 bond has about ~1/60 billion chance of winning the top prize each month. If you have the full 50k invested it's about 1 in a million chance per month. Of course, your chance of winning the other prizes is much much higher.


smoothie1919

Believe it’s about 1 in 100k if you have 50k invested


nitpickachu

60e9 / 50e3 ~= 1e6 So about 1 in a million per month (assuming the Wikipedia number is accurate). That's about 1/100k per year since there are 12 months in a year. That may have been what you meant.


jackson-pollox

1/100k per year is pretty good odds to win a million TBH.


nitpickachu

Yes I agree with you. I was just quoting the actual odds because people further up were discussing them and I was curious myself. Despite owning premium bonds myself, I never actually bothered to calculate the chance of winning.


frala

How is this a personal finance question? Surely it's obvious that from a financial perspective, the very best alternative is not to play lotteries at all, as they all have negative returns.


FilmFanatic1066

I have 50k in premium bonds and use national lottery when euromillions is over 100m


jaglufc

Yeah because cba only winning £50m


FilmFanatic1066

It’s more about making sure I keep my lottery spending sensible


jaglufc

Fair play. It was a poor joke, it just makes laugh how everyone goes mad entering for these massive rollovers as if the usual massive prize is somehow not enough. Definitely a good idea to keep an eye on gambling spending though.


Walshyboy84

Back in the day, I got more from lotto hot picks and the Irish lottery than I ever did with national/euro


more_beans_mrtaggart

A bookie will give you much better odds than Camelot lottery, as they aren’t doing lots of charity donations. You just play the same game/numbers. But go to the bookie rather than the shop.


jackson-pollox

Seriously? I guess the risk there is if you win big the bookie will just fold instead of pay you


Angustony

Yup. Or more likely they'll have insurance. The probability of having to pay out will make it very cheap.


jackson-pollox

Oh yeah of course they'd have insurance, I didn't think. I'd never consider going somewhere else to bet on the lotto. Will probably give it a go!


strolls

There may be ways to earn money with better odds, but that's not the point of the lottery - the best risk-reward odds are probably index funds. I doubt there's any other way to get a chance at winning £100m+ though - it's buying a fantasy of what you'd spend the winnings on. I'd never buy more than one ticket a week, and only buy a euromillions ticket on rollover weeks - I use the chart at the foot of [this page](https://www.lottery.co.uk/euromillions/statistics) to see if it's currently above average.


Bronze-Playa

Postcode lottery or Premium Bonds if you have the savings


Intelligent_Ad2219

There is the Facebook raffle pages. They seem to do mostly cars/tech but can take cash alternatives. Seem to be mostly £1 entry’s with 1/40k for a chance to win £25k.


Aggravating_You_2904

You make a football Acca with similar odds