What's the largest sum of money you've ever placed on a single bet?

[Yaayuh!]

£2

 

[DeliciousStorage]

I already accounted for the monthly draws, you can’t just gamble on the jackpot though, likewise the same applies to the lottery. Buying £50k of premium bonds is a £500 annual bet to try and win any of the prizes.

Yeah but you're comparing it to spending £500 on lottery tickets, and more specifically the odds of hitting the jackpot, so it's only fair to use a best guess of how much on average is actually gambled on the PB jackpot prizes. It's going to be a wildly inaccurate comparison if you include the average 90% 'gambled' on £25 prizes.

 

[dowie]

Yeah but you're comparing it to spending £500 on lottery tickets, so it's only fair to use a best guess of how much on average is actually gambled on the PB jackpot prizes. It's going to be a wildly inaccurate comparison if you include the average 90% 'gambled' on £25 prizes.

Why? Are you unaware there are other lottery prizes too? You looked at the chances of winning the jackpot, I've given them to you.

In both cases there are other prizes but that isn't what was being compared, you don't get the option to buy a cheaper lottery ticket or premium bond just to try and win the jackpot only.

If you didn't gamble the £500 on premium bond prizes then you'd have £500 you could spend on lottery tickets, in both cases there is a chance you could win a jackpot or other prizes, in the case of premium bonds your chances of winning a jackpot prize is better than the lottery + your overall EV is better too as the entirety of that £500 is the prize fund essentially.

I guess the lottery could be better IF you had an equivalent safe product paying well over 1% interest (probably more like 2%+) and you gambled that on a lottery draw.

 

[DeliciousStorage]

Why? Are you unaware there are other lottery prizes too? You looked at the chances of winning the jackpot, I've given them to you.

In both cases there are other prizes but that isn't what was being compared, you don't get the option to buy a cheaper lottery ticket or premium bond just to try and win the jackpot only.

If you didn't gamble the £500 on premium bond prizes then you'd have £500 you could spend on lottery tickets, in both cases there is a chance you could win a jackpot or other prizes, in the case of premium bonds your chances of winning a jackpot prize is better than the lottery + your overall EV is better too as the entirety of that £500 is the prize fund essentially.

I guess the lottery could be better IF you had an equivalent safe product paying well over 1% interest (probably more like 2%+) and you gambled that on a lottery draw.

You're specifically comparing the odds of hitting the big jackpot prizes, which is a pointless comparison when the prize structure is completely different in premium bonds with 90% of the payouts going to the lower £25 prizes.

 

[dowie]

You're specifically comparing the odds of hitting the big jackpot prizes, which is a pointless comparison when the prize structure is completely different in premium bonds with 90% of the payouts going to the lower £25 prizes.

It isn't pointless, I'm simply pointing it out to the poster who tried to make that comparison in the first place. I'm well aware that the prize structure is different, I literally pointed that out already, that doesn't negate that you can look at your chances of winning a jackpot/becoming a millionaire - something some people may be interested in (such as the other poster who initially looked at this/pondered it himself too).

If you're not interested in that then that's fine.

 

[tenofspades]

my housemate has started spending like £10 a day on the lotteries. The other day he was so chuffed to win £2.60.