It’s common practice that friends or coworkers get together and decide to play the lottery as a group. A group of people pool their money together and buy a bunch of lottery tickets. The idea is that if they win, they win as a group. It doesn’t matter who in the group actually picked the winning numbers, the members of the group agree to split the winnings equally. These types of agreements are commonly known as lottery pools. The biggest benefit to joining a lottery pool is that your chances of winning increase (albeit very, very slightly).
This could be in part to members of the group coming up with very different variations of numbers, some so varied that other members of the group would have never come up with the same combination on their own. Also, if 50 people join the group and each pays one $2.00 entry fee, the chances of winning go from 1 in 400,000,000 to 50 in 400,000,000.
I used to work as a valet for a hospital/office building, and one of the groups of coworkers in the office building got together and formed a lottery pool. Turns out they won the Florida Lottery jackpot (this was before the PowerBall was introduced). Each member ended up cashing a check for about $150,000. But this raises the question:
What precautions should I take if I am joining a lottery pool?
Sure a lottery pool might be a fun experience that can help bond a group of friends or coworkers, but the reality is that you might actually win. So there are some steps that are recommended before and after joining a lottery pool, particularly if your group wins.
The first thing you want to do is that you want to make copies of all of the tickets for everyone in the group. One person needs to be in charge of collecting the money, playing the games, and making copies of the tickets. Each person in the pool should get a copy of all of the tickets played.
NOTE: these tickets should only go to those who paid money to be in the pool. It has happened in the past that people who intended to join a pool but didn’t actually pay their money argued that they were entitled to winnings as well.
If one of your tickets wins, then the person in charge of the pool should be responsible for hiring a lottery prize lawyer. You are highly recommended to hire a lawyer to ensure that the prize money is collected and dispersed fairly and evenly among the members of the group.
A recommendation on how this dispersal can work legally is through the creation of a Trust. The Trust is a legal entity that receives the winnings and disperses the money evenly to all of those who are listed as beneficiaries. There are a lot of legal details involved with the formation of the trust, so you will need to research that (should your pool discover you’ve won).
All members need to be aware of and agree to the terms of the lottery pool. This includes who among them will hold the tickets (hopefully it’s somebody they all trust), who will go pick up the winnings and when, and how claiming and dispersing payment will work. All of these details should be considered and taken seriously. Failure to do so has led to disastrous results, ranging from hurt feelings and ruined relationships to lawsuits.
And another thing you should consider if you join a pool: people who join lottery pools pay money to join the lottery pool. Those people also go and play separate games with their own numbers and their own money as well. Cases have arisen where people who joined pools won the jackpot but claimed that they won it with their own numbers and money. If you want to join a pool, and also play the jackpot with your own numbers separately, it should be very, very clear which sets of numbers are in the pool and which are not. Otherwise, I’ll see you in court.