Why Playing the Lottery is Not Worth It

Why Playing the Lottery is Not Worth It

January 18, 2016

The reason I think it's not worth playing is because if it is worth spending $1 for a chance at a half a billion dollars or more, then it's worth spending $5, $10, $20 or more, right? And people do spend that all the time. In fact, it wasn't too long ago that I saw a lady buy $90 worth of scratch offs, which were just for 3 tickets. And its all for just a "chance" to win. But what they are really doing is robbing themselves of their own futures. Let me explain...

Let's say the people who play the lottery, spend on average $10 per week. That's $40 per month. If they were to take that same amount and invested it, getting a 10% rate of return from age 18 to 65, they would have $502,738 by the time they retired. And if they did that in a Roth IRA, that would be a half a million dollars! TAX FREE!! This happens every time! Not in 1 in 259 million tries!! 

And we know that people do this. These numbers are not that far off. We see people do this all the time, especially during the huge jackpots like what was going on last week. This is why I think playing the lottery is a waste of money and is not worth playing.

Now, if you play the lottery, and even continue to play it after reading this, that's fine. It's your money and we can still be friends. But just be aware that you are only hurting yourself, and perhaps your family by playing. Check out this article from Yahoo Finance.