How Does a Lottery Syndicate Work?

Pure and simple a lottery syndicate is a group of people who join together to play the lottery.

The idea is to ‘pool‘ your money together and buy as many tickets as you can.

[That’s why syndicates are also sometimes called ‘lottery pools’]

Then, any winnings are shared between everyone who bought tickets.

That’s it. Simple as that.

So in short, here’s how a lottery syndicate works:-

• Join together with other people who want to play the same game (or find one – see below).
• Nominate a syndicate leader.
• Pool your money together.
• Syndicate leader buys the tickets.
• Then checks the results after the draw.
• And shares the winnings between all the syndicate members.

People have been playing (and winning) with lottery syndicates pretty much since lottery games began.

So Why Play In a Syndicate?

There are two reasons really.

Firstly, to get a better chance of winning.

[You can of course achieve that all by yourself – by buying a lot more tickets. Which of course brings us to the second reason.]

Secondly, to get a better chance of winning without having to spend a lot more money.

It’s fine buying a few tickets a week yourself, but your odds are typically 1-in-13,000,000 or so (for a 6 balls from 49 game) for each ticket you buy. Buy 13 tickets and you’re still looking at 1-in-a-million odds for the jackpot!

So if you join together and form a group of 50 people, and all buy 2 tickets each – now you’ve got the odds of 100 tickets for the cost of 2 tickets.

That brings your chances of the jackpot down to roughly 1-in-130,000.

And you didn’t have to risk buying 100 tickets!

But I Have To Share!

You sure do. That’s the trade-off with a syndicate. You do of course have to share the prizes.

But with a well-balanced syndicate the jackpot should still give you each a decent win even after sharing.

How Do You Find a Good Syndicate?

You’ve got 3 options.

1. Ask around family, friends and work. See what syndicates are already running, and double check they meet your requirements (Bob and Dave buying a couple of tickets once a month may not be what you’re looking for!).
2. Start your own. Choose your game wisely, and plan group size and number of tickets carefully (tips here). Be prepared for a fair amount of work extracting money from members, and managing entries – with little to no thanks 😉
3. Find an amateur or professional syndicate online that plays the game you want, and has balanced their entries to suit you. Our syndicate reviews will help you get there faster – we always detail games, group size and tickets bought.

Hopefully we’ll see your syndicate holding one of those big cardboard cheques one day. So don’t forget to tell us when you win – good luck!