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Lotteries have been around for centuries in one form or another. Wherever there are people who are willing to gamble a small stake with the hope of winning a large prize, you'll have a type of lottery that is open to large numbers of people.

But with modern lotteries, at least those that are run on national levels and come with a first prize in the millions of dollars, pounds, euros or whichever currency you are playing in, what are you actual chances of winning the top prize? Let's look at this highly popular form of gambling and see what makes it so alluring that millions of people regularly buy into the dream week in, week out in the hope that they will one day be the recipient of that huge cheque.

The first thing that many people who regularly play their own national lottery game are often blissfully unaware of is that it is a form of gambling. To so many, a dollar or a pound is a small price to pay for a ticket that could transform their lives, but they often don't see it as gambling. Why is this?

People don't think of their state or national lottery game as gambling because of the way a lottery is run. Its advertising and media promotion aim it squarely at the average family and make it seem as if the ticket they buy is a straight purchase rather than a bet or wager. So to many, they are merely buying a ticket for their money. The money is spent and in return they are buying their weekly or bi-weekly ticket that is their little piece of hope for a better future. They simply do not see it in the same light as walking into a bookmakers and placing a bet on a horse. But in reality, a lottery is exactly like that.

To make this scenario clearer, let's look at a lottery like it was a horse race.

The lottery ticket you buy has the number of the horse printed on it and you are betting a dollar that your horse is going to beat the other 14 million or so other horses in the same race. The difference is that the other 14 million or so people who are all betting on the same race have their own individual horses running too. Some of them might inadvertently bet on your horse, but most won't. If your horse wins and no one else was lucky enough to bet on it, then you win the pot, which is in the millions of dollars, depending upon the particular lottery you're playing. If other people also bet on your horse, they will share the prize with you, reducing your share accordingly.

The bottom line is that you are betting your dollar that your horse, or more correctly your string of numbers will win that draw. That is a bet like any other, and your dollar is the stake. If your horse or string of numbers fails to win, you lose your dollar.

With that side of lotteries now made clear, let's look at the possibilities of winning those millions of dollars which are the first prize in most lotteries.

A figure of 14 million horses was mentioned earlier and this was merely an imaginary figure as the actual numbers will differ enormously from lottery to lottery. The huge Euromillions lottery for instance may sell over a hundred million tickets for a single weekly draw, whereas a smaller state lottery may sell a few hundred thousand tickets. That means the odds of winning even a very small lottery are astronomical. As a very rough way of looking at it, the odds of winning a straight lottery where one hundred thousand tickets are sold is literally one hundred thousand to one. The Euromillions would be more like 100 million to one or worse.

To picture the enormity of those odds, take a field and line up a thousand people side by side all standing behind a screen and you had to choose a particular person from them. Your odds of getting it right are a thousand to one. Yet when you picture what that thousand people would actually look like, it seems like a huge number pr people to choose a single person from. Now multiply that number by a thousand and already you can't imagine what such a large number of people would look like. Imagine trying to find one person in amongst so many. 

Such are the odds with a minor lottery and they get even larger with bigger lotteries. The chances of actually winning the first prize are so enormous as to be almost impossible. You'd be more likely to be hit by lightning while standing in a city street. Yet someone will win it and one or more lucky people do win it and they win it week in, week out. So while the chances of that person being you are slim to the point of invisibility, it is a chance, nonetheless!