What Are Lottery Pools and How Do They Work?

Boost your odds of winning a lottery

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Have you ever seen one of those mega lottery jackpots giving away hundreds of millions of dollars and thought, "I'd be happy if I could just win a fraction of that amount?" If so, a lottery pool might be for you.

What Are Lottery Pools?

Lottery pools are a way of getting better odds of winning a lottery without having to pay more money for tickets. A group of people chips in money to buy lottery tickets with the agreement that if they win, they will split the pot.

So each participant will receive less money than if he or she had bought the ticket themselves, but they also get better odds of winning in the first place.

How Lottery Pools Work

Here's a simple example: your office lottery pool has 50 members. Each of your co-workers contributes a dollar. The lottery pool manager then buys 50 $1 lottery tickets and holds them safely until the lottery drawing.

Now, let's say that lottery pool was very lucky and won a $50 million lottery jackpot. Each of the co-workers who participated will receive a million dollars (before taxes, of course). For the $1 buy-in, the lottery pool participants had 50 times the chance of winning for 1/50th of the total prize value.

Some lottery pools are more complicated. For example, they may allow people to buy more "shares" of the pool by contributing more money. If one of the participants in the example above had contributed $5 instead of $1, and the lottery pool manager had used the extra money to buy 55 tickets instead of 50, he or she would be eligible to receive 5/55ths of the jackpot.

What Do Lottery Pools Do With Smaller Prizes?

Of course, it's much easier to win $5 in a lottery than $50 million, and $5 divided by 50 is hardly worth even dividing out among the lottery pool participants. So what do lottery pools do with small prizes?

There are two options, depending on the size of the prize.

The lottery pool can choose to either divide the small sum between the participants or, if the group buys lottery tickets regularly, they can choose to put the prize amount toward buying more tickets for the next lottery drawing.

Do Lottery Pools Work?

The chances of winning the lottery are very small no matter what you do, there is no secret that can guarantee that you'll hit a jackpot. But lottery pools are a way of increasing your odds without increasing your risk of losing your financial investment in a long-shot dream.

Lottery pools have won big jackpots in the past. For example:

·         According to an ABC News article, a 49-person office lottery pool at SEPTA, a Pennsylvania transit agency, won a Powerball jackpot for $172.7 million in April 2012.

·         As a CNN article relates, a 7-person office lottery pool at New York State's Division of Housing and Community Renewal in Albany split a $319 million Mega Millions jackpot in March of 2011.

·         Huffington Post shares the story of an office lottery pool at Quaker Oats that shared a $241 million Powerball jackpot among 20 employees. A few months later, they won a $10,000+ prize as well.

·         MetroNews in West Virginia reported that after 20 years of trying, the Mountaineer 26 lottery pool scored a million-dollar jackpot.

Who Participates in Lottery Pools?

Office lottery pools are popular because it's easy to get a big group of people to chip in a few bucks each toward a chance of winning. It also helps to encourage people to get to know one another across departments. But any group of people can create their own lottery pool; groups of friends or relatives, your local sweepstakes club, neighbour’s in an apartment complex, or members of any other social group might be interested in participating.

Summary

Before you get started, check with local laws and with your company's human resources department (if you're starting an office lottery pool) to ensure you are not breaking any laws or guidelines that could turn a fun lottery pool into a serious problem. If you decide to go ahead with your pool, make sure you have a good contract to protect yourself and your coworkers. Good luck!