Introduction

My father is an avid lottery player. Like many others, he dreams of winning the Eurojackpot and transforming his life overnight. As a programmer, I wanted to show him—using real data—how much money is actually lost over time by playing the lottery. To do this, I developed a Python script to analyze his Eurojackpot tickets and calculate the true cost of his hobby.

Motivation

Playing the lottery can be entertaining, but the odds are not in your favor. I aimed to help my father see, in clear terms, how much he spends versus how much he wins. The goal wasn’t to take away his enjoyment but to encourage more informed spending and potentially save some money.

The Script: How It Works

The script retrieves official Eurojackpot results from Eurojackpot.de, compares them to your tickets, and calculates your total expenditure, total winnings, and net loss. It uses the requests library to fetch draw results, caches them locally, and supports custom ticket files.

Key Features

  • Automated Data Retrieval: Downloads Eurojackpot results for every draw within a specified period.
  • Ticket Evaluation: Compares your tickets to the actual draws.
  • Spending & Winnings Calculation: Sums up how much you spent and how much you won.
  • Detailed Logging: Provides comprehensive output for each draw and ticket.

Example Usage

Save your tickets in a tickets.json file (as a list of lists, each containing 5 main numbers and 2 Euro numbers):

[
  [1, 12, 23, 34, 45, 2, 9],
  [5, 14, 22, 33, 44, 3, 10]
]

Run the script from the terminal:

python howtolosemoneyfast.py --lookback-days 365 --ticket-file tickets.json --verbose

What You’ll See

The script will display, for each draw, whether your tickets won anything. At the end, you’ll receive a summary like:

Total spent on tickets: 956.80€
Total won: 0.00€
Net loss: 956.80€

What My Father Learned

After running the script, my father was taken aback by the results. Over a year, he had spent thousands of euros and won back almost nothing. This was a powerful, data-driven way to illustrate the real odds of the lottery.

Conclusion

If you or someone you know enjoys playing the lottery, give this script a try! It’s a fun programming project and a great way to learn about probability, data analysis, and personal finance.

Remember: The best way to double your money at the lottery is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

Check out the GitHub repository for the full code and instructions.