Playing the lottery? Increase your odds of winning.

December 22, 2025.  As I write this, the Powerball lottery top prize is $1.6 billion. With a “b”. Yep. If you take the cash value, you get $735.3 million. Before 37% federal tax.  And whatever state tax you pay, unless you live in one of only 8 states that do not tax lottery winnings. Your chances of winning?  1 in 292.2 million. All this according to the Powerball site.

I have some friends who play the lottery every week. They have been doing this since college. So maybe around 40 years. Hope springs eternal! And I won’t scold. Well, maybe a little. Playing the lottery can be fun, if it doesn’t become problematic. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to play it, though. There are a lot better things to do with $10 a week.

But… what if you matched your lottery money with an investment account? That could be in your retirement plan at work, an IRA or a taxable brokerage account.

What would that have looked like for my lottery friends?  Well, if they invested $10 a week in the US stock market (using the proxy of the S&P 500), it averaged around 9.8% per year for the last 40 years. Their accounts would now have over a quarter of a million dollars. Wouldn’t that be nice? So, kind of like their “odds” of winning, on average, were 109.8%. A little bit better than 1 in 292.2 million.

So…if you are planning to play the lottery this week (or any week), I encourage you to open an investment account, or if you already have one, “up” your current investments by the same amount you are using for the lottery and make it a recurring investment. If you can free up even a little more, even better. And the best play? Put your lottery money into your investment account instead. You won’t be sorry.