Odds of Winning the Lottery if You Play Every Week?

There’s a couple of ways to look at this.

And it also depends if you’re doing anything useful to improve your chances of winning.

But let’s get into it.

What Are the Odds of Winning the Lottery if You Play Every Week

Firstly, the odds depend on what game you are playing. We’ll come back to this point shortly, because it’s important.

But let’s assume you’re playing the US Powerball to give us something to work with.

The basic odds of hitting the jackpot with Powerball are 1 in 292,201,338.

And yes, that is a very large number (over 292 MILLION! see What Are The Odds Of Winning The Lottery vs Getting Struck By Lightning).

So if you buy one combination and do nothing else, then that is your odds for each draw. Mathematically this does not change. Meaning each draw your chances are still the same 1 in 292,201,338.

But There Are Two Draws per Week

Powerball is drawn twice a week. So if you play both, this does improve your odds.

The odds now become 1 in 146,100,669.25, which is better but not quite a certainty. 😉

But remember what we’re calculating here. This is just your odds of winning in a week. This week, next week or any week. So what if we think longer term?

What if I Play Each Week for a Year?

This is the other way of looking at it. Over a period of time.

Now we’re talking about the odds of winning the jackpot (at least once) any time within the next year.

So if you are going to play Powerball every week for the next year, that would be 104 draws (2 draws per week and 52 weeks in a year).

Now the odds of winning are reduced to 1 in 2,809,628.

Perhaps not quite as much as you were hoping.

But we will get to what you can do about this shortly. 🙂

What if I Play Each Week for 10 Years?

If you play for 10 years, twice a week, that’s now going to be 1040 draws. Surely that’s enough to hit the jackpot..?

Hmm, not quite.

This does give a slighter less crazy looking number. But odds of winning the jackpot are still 1 in 280,963.

So is it stupid to play the lottery? No it really isn’t. (Read my take on this in the ‘lottery is a tax on the stupid‘)

What if I Play Each Week for 80 Years?

I was going to say 100 years, but that’s a bit ambitious for current lifespan. When you can’t start playing until you’re 18.

So if you play 80 years, twice a week, now we’re looking at 8,320 draws played.

This gives us odds of 1 in 35,120.

NOTE: remember this is only playing a single combination. And we’re only talking about the odds of the Powerball jackpot. There are of course smaller prizes too.

See also: How To Win Powerball.

OK – But What if I’ve Already Been Playing for 20 Years?

It doesn’t make any difference to your chances of winning in the future.

Whether you won or lost in the past is history.

Think of it like flipping a coin. If you guessed heads and tails came up, what are the odds now? The odds didn’t change because you guessed wrong. So your chances are still 1 in 2.

This is one of those things that ‘feels wrong’ even though it is right. Partly because we have brains ‘designed’ to try and make order out of stuff. And partly because we tend to be superstitious.

Don’t be disappointed though. When you enjoy playing the lottery you can’t really lose. You get the entertainment value anyway – if you win, that’s a bonus.

So look at your future chances of winning, and what you can do improve those chances below.

What Are the Odds of Winning the Lottery if You Play Every Day?

Your odds of winning lottery if you play every day depend on what game you play. Amongst other things.

Technically you can’t play Powerball every day, because it’s only drawn twice a week. But if you could, then your odds would be 1 in 10,034. Based on if you play every day with 1 combination for the next 80 years (because that’s the maximum anyone reading this likely has left to play – although lifespans are getting longer 🙂 ).

If you play Pick 3 the odds are of course very different.

Pick 3 has odds of 1 in 10,000 for a single entry. It varies by state but let’s assume a twice daily draw for 7 days a week.

If you played every day for a year, that would give you odds of winning (at least once) of 1 in 14.

Which doesn’t sound too bad at first. Except that this would cost $728 (at $1 a play). To try to win a jackpot of only $500..!

This is why I say Pick 3 is a bad game choice (the best way to win Pick 3 is not to play it).

How Often Do You Have To Play the Lottery To Win?

It’s not really a case of how many times to play lottery to win. Because it’s possible to play and never win. It’s also possible to win just by playing once. There are cases where players have won the jackpot the first time they ever played (such as Jane Park or Tina Ferrone).

It also depends greatly on how you play. Which is something you can change (see below).

Each time you play, the odds are (mathematically) the same.

But the more times you are going to be playing the greater the chance that at some point you may win. Don’t confuse this with the past though. Those draws are done and can’t help you now.

So you need to make the most of the draws you are going to be playing. If you want to maximize your chances of winning.

How Can You Improve Your Odds of Winning?

There is a lot you can do to improve your chances. And I’m talking about sensible real world stuff here, not vague ‘filter out all the bad combinations’ baloney.

Start by looking at the games you are playing. As we saw above, Powerball has terrible odds. Pick 3 has terrible prizes. So why play them?

Look again at the games available to you. Don’t just be swayed by the advertising and the crazy big jackpots. Dig deeper and choose the right game for you. I walk you through this process in my Lottery Strategy Group. It’s the first thing we cover, because it’s important. And most players never even think about game choice.

Don’t just keep doing what you’ve always done. Start thinking differently about how you play the lottery, and you can improve your odds.

See also:

• Which Lottery Has The Best Odds Of Winning?
• The Odds Of Winning Lottery Games