What If You Played the Lottery Every Week of Your Life?
Plenty of people play the same numbers every week, for decades. It's a ritual, and who knows, this could be the week! But what does a whole lifetime of lottery tickets actually add up to?
Picture this: one game a week, from your 18th birthday to your 80th. That's 62 years, or 3,224 games. We simulated 10,000 lifetimes like that in each of 8 lotteries, using the prizes they actually paid. Let's find out how they went!
- A lifetime of lottery
- Will you ever win the Jackpot?
- Will you come out ahead?
- What else could that money do?
- So, is it worth it?
A lifetime of lottery
Here's what a typical player spends and wins back over 62 years, at today's prices. Half of our players did better than this, and half did worse.
| Lottery | Spent | Won back, typically | Biggest win, typically |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia Powerball | A$5,078 | A$1,605 | A$90 |
| Oz Lotto | A$4,836 | A$1,269 | A$52 |
| Australia Saturday Lotto | A$3,063 | A$893 | A$25 |
| Weekday Windfall | A$2,192 | A$696 | A$33 |
| US Powerball | $6,448 | $571 | $7 |
| US Mega Millions | $16,120 | $2,572 | $30 |
| Euro Millions | €8,060 | €1,276 | €14 |
| Euro Jackpot | €6,448 | €1,290 | €25 |
A lifetime of Weekday Windfall gives back the most: around 32% of what you spend. At the other end, a typical US Powerball player gets back just 9%. Its smallest prizes are fixed at $4 and $7, so most of what it pays back goes to the rare big winners.
And the biggest win in a typical lifetime? It's not exactly a yacht: under $100, in every lottery. 62 years of dreaming, for the price of a nice dinner.
Will you ever win the Jackpot?
Almost certainly not. Here's the chance of winning the Jackpot at least once in a lifetime of weekly games, and how long you'd need to play to have an even chance.
| Lottery | Chance in a lifetime | To have a 50% chance, play for |
|---|---|---|
| Australia Powerball | 1 in 41,716 | 1,793,000 years |
| Oz Lotto | 1 in 19,508 | 838,000 years |
| Australia Saturday Lotto | 1 in 2,527 | 109,000 years |
| Weekday Windfall | 1 in 2,527 | 109,000 years |
| US Powerball | 1 in 90,634 | 3,895,000 years |
| US Mega Millions | 1 in 90,097 | 3,872,000 years |
| Euro Millions | 1 in 43,375 | 1,864,000 years |
| Euro Jackpot | 1 in 43,375 | 1,864,000 years |
To have an even chance of winning the US Powerball Jackpot, you'd need to play every week for 3,895,000 years. Our species has been around for about 300,000, so you'd better get started!
Will you come out ahead?
Very few players do. In most lotteries, fewer than 1 in 100 of our players ended a lifetime with more than they spent, usually thanks to a single big win.
| Lottery | Players who came out ahead |
|---|---|
| Oz Lotto | 1 in 72 |
| Australia Saturday Lotto | 1 in 167 |
| Australia Powerball | 1 in 169 |
| Weekday Windfall | 1 in 185 |
| US Mega Millions | 1 in 238 |
| US Powerball | 1 in 370 |
| Euro Millions | 1 in 588 |
| Euro Jackpot | 1 in 588 |
What else could that money do?
Say you skipped the $1.58 Powerball game every week, and put the money in a savings account earning 4% a year instead. By your 80th birthday, you'd have saved $5,078, and the interest would have grown it to around $22,000. Not a Jackpot, but a lot more likely!
So, is it worth it?
If you're playing to get rich, no: a lifetime of tickets nearly always costs a lot more than it wins. But if a few dollars a week buys you the fun of checking your numbers and dreaming a little, that's a perfectly good reason to play. Just go in knowing the odds!
Want to live a lifetime of lottery in a few minutes? Our free lottery simulators let you play thousands of draws with virtual money. And to see how each lottery compares, check out which lottery pays back the most.
Our figures are estimates, using today's prices and the prizes paid in the last year, before tax. US Jackpots count at their cash value.