The Loneliest Numnber

François-Marie Arouet was one of the last to be considered a true renaissance man. A writer, historian, scientist, and philosopher, his name is mentioned in circles with Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Benjamin Franklin. His writing became known for his sharp wit and spanned almost every genre including plays, poems, novels, essays, and biographies. You likely know the man better by his pen name – M. de Voltaire.

Creating a library of literary content to the magnitude which he did, requires two key things. Time, and money. Many great thinkers of the enlightenment period were bankrolled by governments, churches, or wealthy families. Voltaire was none of the above. He self-funded his ventures through a fortune he amassed through…. The lottery.

Over the course of several years Voltaire won the French lottery over 200 times. Not because he was lucky. But because he realized there was a flaw in the system.

The lottery had been instituted to help the French government sell bonds. Each bond came with the opportunity to purchase a lottery ticket for 1/1000 of the value of the bond. If your ticket won, you won your share of the 500,000 Livre prize. What Voltaire realized, is that there was no stipulation made, nor advantage given based on the size of the bond purchased. The biggest bond, and the smallest bond, both came with one ticket. By purchasing a massive quantity of the smallest possible bonds, Voltaire could essentially ensure that he won the prize. He enlisted the help of others to form a syndicate which had the capital required to purchase the necessary amount of bonds, and sure enough, they won. Then they won again. And again. And again.

Lottery syndicates like Voltaire’s are still popular to this day. Modern lotteries are no longer run in a way that allows for a syndicate to ensure their victory, but a group can increase their tiny odds of winning by banding together to purchase a pool of tickets. If one ticket wins, they all split the winnings.

That is exactly what the village of Sodeto Italy had been doing for decades. Every Christmas, the Spanish Lottery runs a game that has become known as “El Gordo” – The Fat One. While the final amount varies year to year, it is not uncommon for it to claim the title as the biggest lottery jackpot in the world. This was the case in 2011.

Every year the housewife’s association of Sodeto would buy a collection of the tickets, and then sell stakes in the pool to residents of the town at a small markup in order to fund local events. Five Euros got one share of the pool, and you threw in an extra Euro as a donation to the community. In 2011 the housewife’s association bought 6,000 Euros worth of tickets. Everyone in town participated in the yearly tradition, knowing they would lose, but enjoying the communal dream of cashing in together.

On December 22, the number 58268 was drawn. In an instant the town erupted. They had hit it big. Celebrations broke out and elated residents flooded the street. So loud was the celebration that it woke up Costis Mitsotakis in the barn he was living in on the outskirts of town. Costis had moved to the barn a few months prior to live with his girlfriend. That relationship didn’t work out, but that breakup was far from the unluckiest thing to happen to him that year. See, when you live in a barn, door to door salespeople are prone to skip your door. They might make the reasonable assumption that nobody is living in the barn, because it’s a barn. That’s exactly what happened when the housewife’s association went out selling tickets in 2011. They didn’t think to knock on the barn door. And Costas never bought his share of the tickets.

In the end the individual prizes ranged from €130,000 to several million Euros depending on the portion of the pool someone purchased. Costis has maintained a remarkably positive attitude about missing out on the fortune, and now plans to make a documentary on how the money changed the town.

I’m going to break some news to you. You are not going to win the lottery. Even if you band together your town and buy a pool of tickets like Sodeto…you are not going to win.

But, I don’t want you to miss out. I don’t want you to be left making a documentary while all of those around you get wealthy. To be clear, your coworkers aren’t going to win the lottery either. Neither or your neighbors, your fellow churchgoers, or your friends. But many of them are going to become millionaires. They are going to do it by doing something that you are completely capable of doing too. They are going to max out a Roth IRA.

Roth IRAs are not a lottery. They will not make you rich overnight. But also, unlike the lottery, you need zero luck to win. All you need to do is put in the money, don’t do anything stupid, and let time do its thing.

It’s not nearly as sexy as winning the lottery. But when you are 65 and a millionaire, you won’t care how unsexy your method of choice was.