Each day around us we engage in meaningless nonsense small talk, while drowning out sorrows in meaningless entertainment. We do this after the 9–5, as 94% of people are engaged in, as a means to an end for surviving, and hopefully generating some surplus. And yet, secretly, we all want to get rich. While there are other things that matter far more, money does solve money problems. Though many may not know how to, and end up resorting to straight luck through playing the lotto. That’s right, $100 billion in the US is spent towards lottery tickets every year. With inflation, that number figures to only rise as the years go by. As of writing, there are approximately 260 million adults aged 18 or over in the US. This means that the average adult spends $384.62 per year on lottery tickets. Surveys also suggest that 1 out of every 2 US adults end up buying lottery tickets. Meaning, the average spends for those who buy lottery tickets is probably closer to ~$800-$1,000 per year. And what’s worse, the odds suggest that it is virtually impossible.

The Powerball grand prize offers a 1 in 292 million chance of winning. You’ve got worse odds than becoming the actual president. The smaller $1 million prizes are 1 in 12 million. So perhaps one person from your whole state. Notice how the lottery advertisements never show the odds of winning? Because who would actually play if you knew how bad the odds were. Even if you win, you have to pay taxes at the top bracket, with federal and state taxes involved. So that could be 35–40% of the winnings gone. The odds are so low that this is the same as throwing bills into the fireplace. At least you will feel some actual temporary warmth from that.

Some say they buy lottery tickets knowing the odds are nonexistent, but do it for the emotion of dreaming and hope. Why buy the dream of hoping to win? You can do this with the other many forms of entertainment out there. And if you want the emotion of hope, you can seek religion for that. For financial hope, there is a better emotional hope that offers a much higher chance of success with startup investing. Not only do you get the hope of striking it rich, but you also get to put money towards a company that you actually believe in, a company that will change the world for the better, with a product or service that you would use regularly. Who knows, you may even end up having the money go to someone that you know and are personally interested in hoping to succeed. There is so much more meaning when you are invested toward someone trying to change the world, than buying some lotto tickets over a cold, emotionless counter. Toss in another ~$800-$1,000 lost per person on average from gambling annually, and all of a sudden that’s ~$1,500-$2,000 of lost money that is found money that could be thrown into a few startup companies.

And you have much better odds too, by the way. Every year, globally over 1,000 new unicorns are formed, startups that have achieved $1 billion US market cap or more. So instead of one Powerball, you have 1,000 opportunities to get a piece of something big. And half of those come from the US too. Plus, you have control over which companies you invest towards. You can research the founder, the product/service, the market size, product market fit, whether you like the product or not and if you or those you know would use it on a long-term basis. Now that startup investing is opened up to the general public since 2017, it’ is still early in the process. It’s possible it could end up becoming a huge trend later on, and we are still quite early for average retail joes stepping in. Think of it as cryptocurrency in 2013. If you had gotten in way back then, you would have done quite well. Sitting on a king’s ransom. The next apple, tesla, amazon, uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, Roblox, is waiting to be discovered.

Disclaimer

This is not Financial Advice. This article is meant only for educational and perhaps entertainment purposes.