Irish Timeswriters analyse your chances of striking it rich on the Lotto, sports and spread betting.
THE LOTTO
How do you fancy having a bet on being struck by lightning? Or being in a plane crash? The odds are pretty attractive: lightning is at 700,000-1, plane crashes a more generous two million to one.
Few people wager that either of these things will happen to them. Yet lots of people regularly put money on a far more outlandish probability.
It is the lottery, or more specifically the Lotto jackpot, the State's most popular bet.
The State-run An Post National Lottery Company's 2007 annual report says that 54 per cent of adults play its games regularly. A high proportion of them do the Lotto, lured by the chance of a big prize. But the odds against you winning this are more than 8.1 million to one, so huge, in fact, that it is as close to never as you are likely to come.
Well maybe not quite never. Dr Patrick Murphy, a statistician with University College Dublin's school of mathematical science says that if you start this week, and keep playing Saturday and Wednesday, it will take you 39,159 years to win.
In theory at least, on the basis that each pick in the jackpot costs you €1.50, the lotto jackpot represents fair value when it is going to pay more than €12 million, which happens more frequently since the lottery increased the numbers to 45. But Dr Murphy points out that no matter what, "you're not likely to be around to collect".
The lottery is a betting pool into which everyone's money is placed and then distributed to the winners. Before this happens, the National Lottery takes a share to cover its costs and to pass on to the Department of Finance, which distributes it to good causes such as youth, sports and recreation, the Irish language and, arts, culture and heritage.
Total lottery sales last year were €778.5 million (a 15 per cent increase over 2006). Good causes got €245.5 million and costs came to €112.1 million. Players won a total of €420.9 million.
Barry O'Halloran
GOLF BETTING
CONFESSION TIME: I bet on golf, and the proof of the pudding is to be seen in my house. There are the "Johnson doors" (Zach Johnson's victory in last year's US Masters, at 175/1); the "Harrington television" (Pádraig Harrington's win in last year's British Open, at 22/1); the "Immelman cooker" (Trevor Immelman's win in the US Masters, at 130/1); and the "Garcia cooker" (Sergio Garcia's win in the Players Championship, at 40/1).
Oh, did I mention Geoff Ogilvy at the recent US Open? No, he didn't win. As in any kind of betting, there is also the flip side of the coin.
On the whole, though, betting on golf - as distinct, say, from the horses which is reserved for the annual post-Christmas visit to Leopardstown - has been kind to this punter. And, it would seem, golf is an increasingly important segment of the market for bookmakers (indicating there are more losers than winners).
Golfers are gamblers by nature. Put a water hazard in front of a green on a par 5 and, more often than not, a player - right down to the club hacker - will believe that it is his duty to go for it.
So, it is not surprising (especially with so much TV coverage) that golf betting has mushroomed since 2000 from 1 per cent of the market to 5 per cent today.
What does set golf apart is the wide range of possible bets. Unlike a horse race which is finished in minutes, golf tournaments last four days with a changing betting market. You can bet not only on an outright winner, but on a player to be first round leader, on the winning score or if there will be a hole in one. There can be up to 30 different "markets" running at any one time.
The biggest area of growth is "live betting". The most famous example of this came in the 2005 US Open, where Geoff Ogilvy was available at 199/1 with two holes to play, when he was two shots behind Phil Mickelson. Ogilvy chipped in for a birdie on the 17th and parred the last to win, after Mickelson took a double-bogey six on the 18th.
Philip Reid
THE RACES
I have been asked for my view on betting on horses because I am apparently an "expert". That is flattering and true to the extent that an expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very small field.
Last year a rare stab of optimism over-ruled experience and the result was a book called Add A Zero, an attempt to turn five grand into 50 grand by betting the horses during a season. Since I am bashing out this article, you will have already gleaned how successful it proved.
At the end of nine months of anxiety, stress, water retention and all too rare moments of bliss, a tiny profit was delivered which has been swaddled and nursed ever since. For the amount of work that went into such "easy" money, nothing else would do.
And what did it prove? It is a ridiculous conceit on most people's part to believe they can consistently make pay an enterprise that can be derailed by a transitory digestive disorder in an animal's lower bowel. Any amount of form-study, breeding knowledge and inside information is useless if the centre of your attention has other things on its mind rather than passing the post first.
All of which does not mean money cannot be made. Successful punters are being increasingly captured for conservation purposes but there are occasional sightings. JP McManus, for instance, is no mean gambler but it is a long time since he was dependent on beating the bookie to pay the mortgage.
Others are less high-profile but these rare species are usually identifiable by the lack of social skills that accompany spending your adult life with a nose in the form book, an ear on the phone and both eyes glued to the racing channel. Throw in the computer merchants and the result is a strain of humanity that will never be mistaken for Peter Ustinov clones.
Such an existence is hardly to be envied. So keep it simple. Make your own mind up, back your own judgment, bet what you can afford to lose and most of all - enjoy. Is that "expert" enough?
Brian O'Connor
SPREAD BETTING
Because of its association with stock markets, spread betting these days is regarded as a financial service.
It represents one way of getting involved with shares without actually owning them.
Given that most major stockmarkets in Europe and the US are down since the beginning of the year, it looks like an attractive alternative to conventional investing.
Despite the perception that it is complicated, the basic principles are simple.
But it is not for the faint-hearted, as the risks are high. Here's how it works.
On Friday, AIB's share price closed at €10.07. This morning, a spread betting firm offers a "spread" of €10.05 to €10.45 on its performance later today.
You believe the price will increase, so you "buy" the spread at €1 a point. AIB bounces back and ends the day at €10.65. You make €20; that is, €1 for every point it gained above €10.45.
Now let's say the price falls to €10. You lose €45; that is, €1 for every point below €10.45.
If you don't believe that AIB's price will increase, you can "sell" the spread at €10.05 for €1 a point. In that case, you make €5; that is, €1 for every point below €10.05 that it dropped.
The key difference between it and conventional betting is that you can lose or win multiples of your original stake.
Most spread betting firms give clients a facility which allows them to automatically limit their losses if the spread goes against them; similarly, they can lock in their profits at a certain point as well. Also, you can sell or buy out of your original position at any time if things look set to go the other way.
Given that both gains and losses are theoretically limitless, and that you can get out of your position at any time, there is very little difference between it and what happens on most capital markets.
Irish firms Delta Index and Worldspreads offer spread betting on financial markets, as does bookmaker Paddy Power.
Barry O'Halloran