Buying All Lottery Combinations: Cost, Odds and Real-World Outcomes
Ever wondered what would happen if you bought every single combination in the lottery? It’s a tempting idea—guaranteed to win the jackpot, right?
Before you reach for your wallet, there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye. How much would it actually cost? What are the real chances of coming out ahead? And has anyone ever tried it?
This article walks through the facts and real-world outcomes so you can see whether buying every ticket is a clever plan or just a myth.
How Many Lottery Combinations Exist?
In typical UK Lotto draws you pick 6 different numbers from a pool of 59. The order of the numbers does not matter, so the calculation uses combinations rather than permutations.
The formula for combinations is n! / (k! × (n − k)!), where n is the pool size (59) and k is the number chosen (6). Working this through gives the product:
59 × 58 × 57 × 56 × 55 × 54 divided by 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1.
That equals 45,057,474 possible combinations. To play every single line once would require filling in over 45 million tickets — a scale that already shows how impractical the idea is.
Knowing the number of combinations lets us move on to what that scale actually means in money terms.
What Would It Cost to Buy Every Ticket?
At £2 per line, buying all 45,057,474 combinations would cost £90,114,948. That figure is a straightforward multiplication, but its implications are more than just arithmetic.
That outlay is typically far larger than the top prize on offer in a single draw. It also ignores the substantial practical costs: staff or contractors to buy and log tickets, storage and transport, and the time needed to check and claim winnings. These operational expenses would push the total cost even higher.
With such a high upfront expense, even a headline jackpot would struggle to cover the outlay, which is why the idea looks attractive on paper but unfeasible in practice.
Could You Really Win Every Prize?
Buying every combination means holding at least one ticket that matches every winning number combination, so in principle you would have tickets covering all prize tiers.
In practice, many prizes are shared with other players who match the same criteria. If there are multiple winners at a prize level, payouts are divided. Some lower-tier prizes are fixed amounts per winning ticket, so owning a ticket that qualifies for such a prize yields the stated amount but does not scale to offset massive costs. Administrative limits, purchase rules and the time needed to buy and process millions of tickets also make it impossible to guarantee you could collect every payout.
Even with full coverage of combinations, sharing and operational constraints reduce the amount you could actually convert into cash. That gap between theoretical coverage and real cash returned is central to why the scheme rarely works out financially.
To see how those reduced returns compare with the cost, consider the likely total prize take next.
How Likely Is It to Win or Lose Overall?
Even if you held every ticket, the economics usually do not add up. The total of the jackpot plus all secondary prizes in a single draw rarely matches the tens of millions required to buy all lines. A sole jackpot win of, say, £20 million plus secondary prizes worth another £10–£15 million would still leave a very large shortfall against a £90+ million outlay.
Lotteries are structured so that only a proportion of ticket sales is returned as prizes. That structural gap means the cumulative payouts across all tiers are unlikely to cover the entire cost of purchasing every combination.
There are also additional costs to consider: bank and transaction fees, staff or contractor payments, and the time value of money when funds are tied up. Together with the risk that the jackpot is split with other winners, these factors make it highly unlikely a buyer of every combination would break even.
Next, it’s worth looking at tax and legal issues that can further affect the outcome.
Taxes, Fees and Payout Reductions
In the UK, lottery prizes are paid tax-free to the winner. However, when large groups or organised operations are involved, other tax or reporting obligations can arise depending on how winnings are distributed or invested. Handling fees, logistics and payroll for people involved in purchasing and processing tickets will also erode any potential returns.
Organisers attempting mass purchases may face additional scrutiny from lottery operators, and some jurisdictions have introduced rules specifically to deter large-scale bulk buying. These layers of cost and regulation make a profitable outcome even less likely.
Risk of Shared Jackpots
Jackpots are often shared when multiple players match the winning numbers. When a top prize is split, even what appears to be a large payout can shrink substantially. High-profile draws that attract many casual players increase the chance of splits, which reduces the maximum that a mass-buyer could hope to receive.
Because splitting reduces the upper bound of possible returns, it undercuts the basic financial case for buying every possible line.
Have People Tried This in Real Life?
There have been organised attempts and syndicates that tried to buy every ticket or a very large portion of combinations. These real-world experiments illuminate how theory meets practical constraints.
One notable case operated in the 1990s in Australia, when a syndicate purchased most combinations in a lottery with a smaller total of possibilities and lower ticket prices. They secured wins, but the operation encountered major logistical challenges that ate into profits. Other efforts in different countries have similarly run into problems: time limits, ticket sale windows, and modern ticketing systems make mass purchases difficult or impossible.
Legal and regulatory changes in many places now specifically limit bulk buying or impose purchase caps. Operators have also improved verification and anti-fraud measures, which further complicate large-scale schemes. These combined deterrents have made the strategy largely impractical today.
These historical attempts explain why the next section concludes the scheme is not worth the risk.
Would Buying All Combinations Ever Be Worth It?
On balance, buying every combination is almost never a sensible investment. The purchase cost in a standard UK draw exceeds £90 million, while total payouts across prize tiers and likely jackpot sizes fall well short of that sum. The built-in payout structure of lotteries means only a fraction of ticket sales is returned as prizes, so the math works against mass purchasers.
Operational and legal barriers add further weight. Purchase limits, logistical complexity, handling costs and the potential for shared jackpots all reduce returns. Even if an extraordinary jackpot were to occur, the chance of it being sufficient — and remaining unshared — is extremely small.
Taken together, these factors make attempting to cover all combinations a high-cost, high-risk move with little realistic prospect of profit. A more measured approach to participation, within personal financial limits and the rules of the game, is the practical alternative.
The Bottom Line: The Reality of Playing Every Ticket
The idea of buying every lottery ticket sounds decisive, but the reality is that the numbers and the rules are stacked against it. Covering all combinations requires vast expense, intensive organisation and still leaves the buyer exposed to prize-sharing, fees and legal limits. Historical attempts show that even when most combinations were bought, outcomes rarely justified the effort.
Lotteries are designed so that returns are a fraction of the total intake, and no system can reliably overcome that structure. Treat participation as entertainment rather than an investment, and keep spending within personal means. That approach is the only sustainable way to take part.
**The information provided in this blog is intended for educational purposes and should not be construed as betting advice or a guarantee of success. Always gamble responsibly.