Lottery Syndicates

Managing A Lottery Syndicate For Dummies

Lotteries offer the common person a glimmer of hope to become rich and solve all of their financial problems. People realise these days that the more lottery tickets you hold, the better your chances on winning the lottery are.

For the UK National Lottery, there are about 14,000,000 different combinations so if you have one line, or one ticket, you one 1 in 14,000,000 chances of winning. Now if you have, say, 1000 tickets you have 1 in 14,000 chances of winning so your odds increase considerably. But purchasing 1000 tickets is beyond most people’s means. Who could afford $1000 a week? So the answer is to join a syndicate and spread the cost and share the benefits of better odds.

If you were in a 100 person syndicate paying $10 a week into the pool and you won $10,000,000 you would each win around $100,000. Not bad for your $10 investment.

When you start a syndicate you should make sure you set things up properly because there will always be disputes and arguments especially concerning people who leave or join.

  • Put everything in writing. Set up a contract detailing the rules of your syndicate and get everyone to sign it. All members should have a copy, give a copy to a solicitor or independent adjudicator and display a copy where you can all see it. Here are some things you should include in your contract.
  • Decide on the maximum number of people you allow in to your syndicate.
  • If you are going to play the same numbers each time, ensure they are noted in the contract.
  • Decide who will be responsible for filling out the tickets and putting the tickets on each week. Include that in the contract and ensure a system is in place to deal with occasions when this person is unavailable. The ticket stubs should be made available by this person(s) as proof that the tickets were put on.
  • Decide how and who will collect weekly subscriptions.
  • Decide what will happen if someone misses a subscription – will they be excluded from a win, or will their subscription be made up by others? If someone misses a set number of consecutive subscriptions, you might want to exclude them fro the syndicate and allow someone else in. – Whatever you decide, ensure it is in the contract.
  • Decide what happens with minor prizes. Do they get carried over and saved for distribution at a later date (for example Christmas) or are they shared out when the amount reaches a certain level. Or do you play additional lines when there’s a roll over for example?
  • Check your local tax laws to see whether you need to declare the syndicate for tax purposes.
  • Check with your employer to ensure you have permission to run a syndicate on their premises and in their time.
  • Decide how people can leave and join your syndicate. If you have a maximum of 20 people allowed, you might have a waiting list of people who want to join.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but any contract is better than no contract at all.

The most common kind of dispute is when someone has missed a payment, and the syndicate have a win that week. If it is the jackpot – there will be arguments over whether that person should be included in the payout. Decide now, document it and get everyone to sign up to the rules. Even if you have been running a syndicate for years, it is not too late to initiate a contract. Get everyone together, discuss and agree the rules, get them down on paper and get everyone to sign up to them.

The same applies to family syndicates. To avoid any rifts and arguments, make sure everyone knows the rules.

Lottery Syndicates

Lottery Syndicates – Should You Participate?

There are times when you’ve got to look up to the power of “One” and there are times when you just have to say “Team”. When talking of lotteries, you increase your chances of winning manifold when you participate in an e-lottery syndicate.

An online syndicate harnesses the power of the internet to enable people participating in a lottery to win more frequently. This happens because when you purchase a lottery via a syndicate, you automatically make yourself eligible for the winnings of other members. In essence you are entering a given lottery draw multiple times at no extra cost. Thus, your chances of winning increase exponentially. Of course, the winnings are split between the participants. So, an e-lottery syndicate is basically a trade-off between a potentially huge lottery win against better chances of winning a smaller packet

Syndicates can span many countries; for example Virtual World Direct (VWD), which runs a syndicated effort for the Euro Millions lottery, is available to citizens from Belgium, France, Spain, Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The vast player population along with the combined lotteries of different nations makes Euro Millions the biggest bumper lottery system out there.

By becoming a member of an e-lottery syndicate you get access to some of the largest tax-free lotteries in the world. Membership is easy; all that is required is a computer with an internet connection and a credit card. With an e-lottery syndicate you do not need to keep purchasing tickets every week and visit your lottery seller for checking results. The whole system is computerized and when you win you are intimated by email. You do not have to go anywhere to collect your winnings, they are sent to your house.

There are several online resources which review e-lottery syndicates. You can refer these before you decide upon the syndicate most suited to your style and pocket. Membership fees may vary and the number of participants in a group can also differ. You should also check for member reviews on different online forums, inputs from your countrymen can be especially revealing. Check for the kind of customer service and back-office support offered by the syndicate. Of course, scams abound and you should be alert and not fall prey to anything that sounds too good to be true.

Two popular lottery syndicates are the UK National Lottery syndicate and Euro Millions syndicate run by VWD. The UK National Lottery syndicate consists of multiple groups with 49 members in each group. So, the winnings in a group are shared by 49 members. With just £5, you make yourself eligible to winning against 88 lines that open every week. The money is to be paid 4 weeks in advance. The draw occurs twice a week. The VWU Euro Millions syndicate has 39 members to a group and there are 36 lines in each draw.

Finally, you could also take a look at the range of software available for lottery and gaming enthusiasts. This includes syndicate management software for syndicates, entry management software, and lottery analysis software for the players.