is there really a chance of winning to lotto or any raffle entry?

The lottery is a tax on poor people and people who can not do math. If you play the lotto, I hope you feel the money you are putting into it is worth the entertainment value, because statistically that is all you are going to gain. The chances of winning a substantial jackpot start at around 0.000025% and just get worse from there. Let's assume someone spends an average of $35 a month on playing the lottery. They play every month from age 18 to 68. In that time they will have spent $21,000 dollars playing the lottery. Doesn't sound like much over 50 years. If you add up all the probabilities for each individual month you get a 1.5% chance of winning sometime within the 50 year time frame (assuming the chances of winning stay constant at 1 in 4 million). That 1.5% is derived from the formula: Pn = (P1+P2+Pn..) - (P1*P2*Pn..) Or simplified since our numbers are constant: Ptotal = (Pmonth * 12 months * 50 years) - (Pmonth ^ (12 months * 50 years)) Let's assume instead of playing the lottery with that money, instead they invested the $35 a month in good mutual funds earning an average 12% rate of return. Some years are good, some bad, but that's the average. At age 68 by investing that money, they will be a millionaire. Not 1 in 4 million times, but nearly every time. They just changed their success rate at being a millionaire by the age of 68 from 0.000025% to greater than 90%. Even if that mutual fund didn't perform at quite the rate we wanted, I'll offer my personal guarantee that you will still be in a better position financially. Draven the Respectful Atheist http://dravenwriter.blogspot.com