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The aim of this article is to explain a little about how you can start
a lottery syndicate, but first we need to introduce the concept of
lottery syndicates and explain why playing as a syndicate member can
be better than playing the lottery as an individual.
We know that the only sure way to increase our chances of winning the lottery is to buy more tickets, but for most of us it is impossible to justify spending hundreds of pounds a week simply to increase our chances by a fractional amount. A way around this conundrum is to get together with a bunch of friends, family members or work colleagues and form a lottery syndicate.
With a lottery syndicate, the lottery stakes of members are pooled to buy more tickets than any member would be able to buy as an individual. For example, if a player buys three tickets per week, then that individual has just three chances of winning a prize. But if they find nine other friends who also buy three tickets each on a weekly basis, they can form a lottery syndicate, put £3 per week into the syndicate pot and share a total of 30 tickets. If any of these syndicate tickets wins a prize, the money is split equally between the syndicate members.
Starting a lottery syndicate isn’t particularly complicated. In fact you can set up a basic syndicate by following just three simple steps:
1 – Find Some Members
It sounds obvious enough, but the first step is to find some friends,
colleagues or family members to form a syndicate with. The individuals
should all be keen on the idea of a syndicate, and be willing to make
a certain contribution each week. Bear in mind that the more people
there are in the syndicate, the more tickets you will be able to buy.
However, you will also need to do more administration, as there is
no automatic way to buy lottery tickets in bulk in the UK. This means
you will need to complete payslips manually and spend time checking
your tickets for winning lines.
2 – Set Some Rules
The most successful and long-lasting syndicates adhere to a set of
ground rules which all members agree on at the outset. The basic rules
should cover how much each member will contribute on a weekly basis,
how numbers will be selected, who will be responsible for buying tickets
and how prizes will be distributed. The obvious answer to the latter
point is “equally” but in practice it isn’t usually worth bothering
splitting a £10 prize between 17 syndicate members, so you may want
to say that prizes of very modest amounts will simply be used to buy
additional Lucky Dip tickets for the following draw. It is normally
a good idea to hold a syndicate meeting to go through the proposed
rules and get everyone’s agreement before moving on to the third step.
3 – Put It In Writing
Having rules in writing and getting signatures from members can be
a good way of avoiding disputes later down the line. You may not think
that your friends, neighbours, work colleagues or family members are
likely to argue with you about money, but people do some very surprising
things when there are very large sums at stake, so it is always sensible
to err on the side of caution. When you have drawn up documents and
had them signed by syndicate members, take two copies. Give one copy
to the member, give one to a third party for storage and keep the
original for your own records.
When you have taken these three steps, all that remains is for you to start playing according to the rules you have established and agreed on. You might also want to check our top tips for lottery syndicates, which you can find elsewhere on this site.
Here’s to your first syndicate win!
