Lottery vs. Investment Calculator
What if you invested your lottery ticket money in index funds instead? The math might change your perspective.
Lottery vs. Investment Calculator
Lottery vs. Investment Calculator
Invested over 30 years
$52,865.41
Total spent on lottery
$15,600
Expected lottery return (~46% of spend)
$7,176
Investment advantage
$45,689.41
Updates instantly · formula below
How to use this lottery vs. investment calculator
- 1Enter tickets bought per week and price per ticket.
- 2Set years to compare.
- 37% mirrors historical S&P 500 returns.
- 4Lottery expected value is ~46% of spend — the average $2 ticket returns ~$0.92.
Formula
How it's calculated
Investment FV = monthly spend × ((1+r)^n − 1) ÷ r. Lottery EV ≈ 46% of spend (state average).
About the Lottery vs. Investment Calculator
5 lottery tickets/week at $2 = $520/year. Over 30 years: $15,600 spent with ~$7,200 expected lottery return. Invested at 7%, that same $520/year grows to $52,000. The lottery's true price is the foregone investment — not just the ticket cost.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't the lottery fun though?
Absolutely — entertainment value is real. This shows the financial cost of that entertainment, not whether to stop. If $10/week of tickets brings genuine joy and fits your budget, that's valid.
What about big jackpots?
Even at $1B jackpots, expected value rarely exceeds $0.80 per $2 ticket after taxes and lump-sum discount.
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