Which career is better ?

Which has better odds winning the lottery, or landing a career that can afford you the life as if you won?

• Ill add a third, striking it rich via standard invesment practices. Winning the lottery is self explanitory. Landing a career that can affrd a lifestyle as if you won the lottery. Assume say the lowest powerball jackpot without any other winners, and you take the cash. What's that? $10,000,000? After tax thas $6,000,000. Assume say a minimum 5% return on investments. So maybe $300,000 annual returns/dividends etc. So let's say a career that pays $300,000 annual, without extensive amounts of time wastd moving up the ladder. What I mean is a career that pays an average of $300,000 over the entire career. So if one were to work 20-30 years the average income for each year would be $300,000. So if entry level was say $20,000 there would b a lot of catching up to do. Now of course even $300,000 per yer isn't the same as having $6,000,000 in the bank. Think about credit lines and such. So maybe that's another qualification for he career,and may force the salary higher. Third option, investing. Assume working a "normal" paying career nd consistently investing until you can afford a lifestyle equivalent to the two above, and also compensate for the time spent not living that way. I'm not talking about simply regularly investing with consistent returns and ending up with 1-2 million. I mean ending up a multi multi millionare. So which has the better odds? I'm starting to feel I have abetter chance with the lottery. If I drop $2 per week for the rest of my life that's only $104 per year and say 30 moreyars worth living or trying to imprve my standard of life that's a total of what $3120 over my life? I doubt $3k would ever earn me millions on the stock market. I've already spent an easy $50,000 + on education for a better career, and yet my career is no better than it was before. I can't find lucrative work, or even work that pay better than the job I've worked since highschool. Not o mention I've never heard of anyone in IT moving up the ladder to $300,000 per year positions in short time or any time for that matter. What do you people think? I forget the powerball odds... something like 1 in 50,000,000 or more I don't know. But it seems like bettr odds than me actually earning anything remotely similar. Oh one more, if the lottery is better odds why isn't everyone playing that can?

• Answer:

  I've done the math on winning the lottery, and you won't like the results. You can spend $50 per week for the next 70 years and you STILL would have, for all PRACTICAL purposes, ZERO chance of every winning the jackpot in PowerBall or any other such jackpot. I don't feel like doing the math out completely, but it works out to be realistically around 1 out of 1,060 people that would eventually win a jackpot, IF, and only IF, they spent that much money for the rest of their lives! Some of those people might win earlier in their life, but some might not win until they are 90 years old. Even at that, only around 1 out of 1,060 would win! Once again - that's only if they spend $50 per week for their whole life!!! That's why I say for all PRACTICAL purposes, your chance is zero. Now just ask yourself if it's more likely that a hard-working person could make that sort of money with a regular job. The answer is absolutely, positively YES! There are only a few hundred people in the world that have millions of dollars because of lottery winnings. There are tens of thousands of millionaires because of working hard. My sister didn't even graduate from undergrad school until she was 47 years old, yet she's worked so hard that she just landed a 250K per year job. LOL - I just re-read something I missed from your post earlier! You're talking about only spending $2 per week! So just multiply my number by 25 and you get what your chances are! You've got around a 1 out of 26,500 to win the jackpot at some point in your life. I know compared to the hundreds of millions to one that the actual jackpot odds are, 26,500 seems fairly good. It's NOT! You only have ONE LIFE! The poor and the ignorant. That who the lottery companies target. These are the people who spend the greatest percentage of their income on playing the lottery. Don't be one of them. There's nothing really wrong with 1 or 2 dollars per week. Just don't get your hopes up, and don't ever waste more money than that. Allow me to end with one more note about my sister. The difference between her and most people, is that she worked like a dog to get where she's at. She, along with most other self-made rich people, had a vision for what she wanted to do with her life to get her where she is. Most folks, you and me both, don't have that sort of vision or that sort of drive. So we've got to accept the truth - that life will be hard work. Life can still be happy and enjoyable, even if you have to work hard. If you really won't settle for anything less than being rich, at least don't be like all the ignorant and poor people and think your only way to get there is through the lottery. It's quite simply NEVER, ever, ever, ever, EVER going to happen. Not in 26 THOUSAND lifetimes! ***EDIT*** Don't forget that 1 in 1,000 I cited was only if you spent $50 per week for an entire lifetime! That 1 out of 1,000 might not even hit the jackpot until they are 80 years old!