What are your chances of winning the lottery?

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Lotteries serve two main purposes. First, they raise money for schools, state budgets, and gambling addiction programs. Second, they excite players who dream of a one in a million chance of becoming a lottery winner and putting all their money problems in the rearview mirror.

Although it can be a thrill to hit any lottery jackpot, Powerball or Mega Millions, the reality is that your chances of winning are essentially zero, which is not a very lucky number. However, part of the joy that comes from playing the lottery is the idea that anyone can win a top prize. And right now for Powerball, that top prize is worth $1.8 billion Second largest drawing ever.

However, every player should know exactly what they are doing when they play lottery games, especially if it is used as an investment strategy rather than temporary entertainment. Here’s a closer look at the statistics behind the lottery and your chances of winning in black and white financial advice.

Real Chances of Winning the Lottery

When it comes to whether or not you’ll hit the jackpot, here’s the cold, hard truth: For Mega Millions, one of the most popular lotteries in the United States, your chances of winning are about 1 in 300 million. If you’re playing a single-state lottery like California Super Lotto, your odds go up to 1 in 42 million.

While on paper this may seem like a huge increase in your chances, 42 million to 1 is still very close to zero. For perspective, the chances of being struck by lightning are about 1 in 1.2 million.

Your chance is the same as everyone else’s

Statistics is an interesting thing. They can often present a singular mathematical truth that obscures the bigger picture. Winning the lottery is a perfect example. Lottery players often claim that the ticket they buy has the same chance of winning as any other ticket – and this is a mathematical truth. However, this does not address the larger, more important mathematical truth that every ticket has basically no chance of winning.

So, while your lottery ticket may have the same chances of winning as anyone else, you don’t necessarily have every chance of achieving great success.

Possibility of other unlikely events

To put your chances of winning the lottery into perspective, here are some other long odds when it comes to winning big that happen much more often than winning the lottery:

• According to the CDC, you’re about 30,000 times more likely to get injured in the bathroom than you are to win the Mega Millions jackpot.
• The chance of being attacked by a shark in the United States is 1 in 11.5 million.
• Based on regular, old-fashioned earning power alone, approximately 1 in 15 Americans currently have a net worth of more than $1 million, so take the Powerball lottery.

Most Americans don’t fear getting killed by a shark or being struck by lightning on a daily basis, yet many believe they could win the lottery. Although all of these events can certainly occur, the probability of their occurrence is very low.

How to improve your chances

There is one way you can mathematically improve your chances of winning the lottery: buy more tickets. The more tickets you buy, the greater the statistical probability that one of those tickets will be a winner. However, this is another example of how a single mathematical truth can obscure the bigger picture. Although your chances of winning the Mega Millions jackpot may double if you buy two tickets instead of one, they will only increase from 1 in 300 million to 2 in 300 million – still essentially zero.

Buying more tickets to improve your lottery chances will still prove to be a losing strategy, as you will have to risk more capital to improve your chances. For example, if you spend $10 instead of $2 on Mega Millions tickets, your chances of winning may increase, but you will also spend five times as much money, while your chances will remain statistically close to zero. The chances of losing your entire savings are much higher than the chances of winning the Mega Millions jackpot.

The real winning ticket: long-term investing in the stock market

If you want to cash in on a “real” winning lottery ticket, take the money you typically spend on lottery tickets and invest it in the stock market. The so-called “risky” S&P 500 index has never lost money over a 20-year period, and it has provided investors with returns of more than 10% annually over the long term. This means your money will almost double every seven years, talk about a lump sum of winnings.

If you put $15 a day — or $450 a month — into the S&P 500 index instead of buying lottery tickets, after 30 years, your expected nest egg would be more than $1 million. If you had invested that money in lottery tickets, you likely would have spent $162,000 and still would have never won the Mega Millions jackpot.

Although there is nothing wrong with playing the lottery for entertainment purposes, choosing it as an investment strategy instead of purchasing a simple S&P 500 index fund is not a prudent financial move. In short, play the right odds.

Caitlin Moorehead contributed reporting to this article.