A little lesson on risk to reward
How often do you hear a person commenting on how the lottery is a “sucker’s bet”? Well if you know anyone in the world of poker you probably hear this somewhat regularly. But the truth of the matter is that there is no other gambling enterprise that offers BETTER odds at turning $1 into $1,000,000+ than the lottery -or even $20 into $1,000,000 for that matter.
Just think of how many wins you would need at the Roulette Wheel to accomplish this:
- 1st Win: $1 = $36
- 2nd Win: $36 = $1,296
- 3rd win: $1,296 = $46,656
- 4th Win: $46,656 = $1.6 Million
You would need to hit a 37-1 shot four times in a row…. Oh wait! I forgot to mention that casinos have maximum allowable bets in place, so unless you are in some super bizarre high-roller suite you probably can’t place those last two bets! So even your .00000053% (roughly 188,679,245-1) chance of hitting four numbers in a row is wishful thinking since the casino will cap your max-bet at about $200; even a $10 minimum table will cap you at about $1,000. Compare this to your chance of hitting a standard-style 6-number lottery with somewhere between 48-53 numbers to choose from, your odds are in the 12,000,000 to 23,000,000-1 range.
Alright, Roulette is a sucker’s bet too, what about poker; after all that’s a beatable game? Yes poker is a beatable game, but the chances of you turning $1 (or $20, or even $200) into a million are incredibly slim, slimmer than the lottery. How many aspiring Poker Pros go broke? How many Poker Pros have actually turned a small amount of money into $1 million? At any point there are hundreds of thousands of people playing poker, and there have only been a few instances of a player winning $1,000,000 in a session, AND this is usually at the highest stakes games possible where the buy-ins are six-figures to begin with!
I have never heard of a player turning $1,000 into a $1,000,000 in a session, let alone $1 or $20. If you think poker offers you a better chance at becoming a millionaire by putting $20 here and there on the tables, best of luck to you!
The point of this little exercise is to show you that even a bad bet like the lottery can sometimes be the best bet for the circumstance. If your goal is to find the best odds on becoming a millionaire with the smallest amount of capital than the lottery is the best bet in the house. Poker players may decry the poor odds, and the negative equity of playing the lottery, but for the vast majority of people in the country, and around the world, the ONLY chance they will ever have of becoming a millionaire through gambling is through the lottery.
