Where Else Can you Buy a Dream for a Dollar?
November 24, 2020 12:24 PM Subscribe
What are some (legal) places, besides the lottery, where a small investment might turn into a a large windfall without a lot of work?
I am lucky enough to have a couple hundred dollars that I would like to "invest" in a manner that would give a chance at big (legal!) win ratios for amount spent. I bought a subscription to PowerBall earlier this year and it has been fun to check the numbers and dream a bit about a life-changing sum of money as we are stuck in the house. With that experience in mind, I am interested in some less obvious ideas.
Ideally there would be little-to-no work on my side for participating (so, no essay contests or similar), could do it from home (no slot-machines), and no heavy marketing resulting from participation (not the old "win a Florida vacation!" boxes that were in the malls to collect sales leads). The prize could be money, an item, a gift card, etc., but the ratio of investment to result should be more than 1000X. Bonus points for places where the entry fee could do some good (like how 50/50 raffles often work). I am located in the Northeast US, if jurisdiction is relevant.
Note: I am not expecting to win (see PowerBall), but am looking for additional fun opportunities to dream as the darkness falls around the northern hemisphere.
Second Note: Charity giving is happening outside of this sum -- this is fun money.
I am lucky enough to have a couple hundred dollars that I would like to "invest" in a manner that would give a chance at big (legal!) win ratios for amount spent. I bought a subscription to PowerBall earlier this year and it has been fun to check the numbers and dream a bit about a life-changing sum of money as we are stuck in the house. With that experience in mind, I am interested in some less obvious ideas.
Ideally there would be little-to-no work on my side for participating (so, no essay contests or similar), could do it from home (no slot-machines), and no heavy marketing resulting from participation (not the old "win a Florida vacation!" boxes that were in the malls to collect sales leads). The prize could be money, an item, a gift card, etc., but the ratio of investment to result should be more than 1000X. Bonus points for places where the entry fee could do some good (like how 50/50 raffles often work). I am located in the Northeast US, if jurisdiction is relevant.
Note: I am not expecting to win (see PowerBall), but am looking for additional fun opportunities to dream as the darkness falls around the northern hemisphere.
Second Note: Charity giving is happening outside of this sum -- this is fun money.
If you pay any attention to politics, PredictIt can be a fun way to blow some money. You can bet on anything from Biden cabinet picks to the specific margin of victory in various states, etc.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:59 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:59 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
cryptocurrencies. to the moon and back.
posted by Dashy at 1:06 PM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 1:06 PM on November 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
Out of the money call options.
posted by AugustWest at 1:09 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by AugustWest at 1:09 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
There are (were? I haven't heard of them in awhile) Facebook group Reddit subs (r/sweepstakes was the one I knew about at the time) that tracked the kind of sweepstakes contests you could enter without purchase just be submitting some kind of ballot in the mail or filling out a form online. I don't know if that's more work than you were hoping for, but buying a bunch of stamps to enter contests could be fun and entertaining.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:15 PM on November 24, 2020
posted by jacquilynne at 1:15 PM on November 24, 2020
I sold a domain name for serious money. My company was in disarray, was going to abandon it, gave it to me. Took 2 years, but was an exceptional investment. also kind of fun. I am female and old, blows minds that an LOL (little old lady) did that. There are creative interesting names out there still.
posted by theora55 at 1:57 PM on November 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 1:57 PM on November 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
Penny stocks-low value stocks that could be bought up by other companies OR just go up OR go out of business.
This article shows you a few examples (this is not investment advice). NEOS at $0.579. 100 shares would cost $57.90. If it doubles it would be $115.80. Not a huge windfall, but some fun. If it gets bought out it might go to $10.00 ($1000). More fun.
Stocks don't expire like options so you can watch these until you want to sell. Most brokers now don't charge commissions on stocks, so this would be low cost.
It's good to be realistic, you probably won't get rich, but better odds than the lottery.
posted by H21 at 2:11 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
This article shows you a few examples (this is not investment advice). NEOS at $0.579. 100 shares would cost $57.90. If it doubles it would be $115.80. Not a huge windfall, but some fun. If it gets bought out it might go to $10.00 ($1000). More fun.
Stocks don't expire like options so you can watch these until you want to sell. Most brokers now don't charge commissions on stocks, so this would be low cost.
It's good to be realistic, you probably won't get rich, but better odds than the lottery.
posted by H21 at 2:11 PM on November 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
How long is your time horizon? You can find new artists on Twitter / Instagram very easily these days, and they sell small prints for a few bucks. 99.9% of them are probably worth only what you paid for them, but in 50 years they could be legends.
posted by wnissen at 2:43 PM on November 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by wnissen at 2:43 PM on November 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
Best answer: A program in the Bay Area sells "dream house" raffle tickets to support a local museum. The house this year is pretty ugly, but you can also choose cash if you win. There are also other prizes, like a Tesla.
posted by pinochiette at 5:40 PM on November 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by pinochiette at 5:40 PM on November 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: @pinochiette -- this is just the type of thing I was hoping for!
posted by chiefthe at 6:44 PM on November 24, 2020
posted by chiefthe at 6:44 PM on November 24, 2020
Omaze used to be mostly "Give $, win a chance to hang out with (celebrity) at (where they're shooting)" sorts of things, but it seems to have shifted to "win a (material prize) plus cash" type prizes now (understandable in a pandemic), if that's of interest.
posted by pdb at 8:34 PM on November 24, 2020
posted by pdb at 8:34 PM on November 24, 2020
> Penny stocks-low value stocks that could be bought up by other companies OR just go up OR go out of business. This article shows you a few examples
out of curiosity i went through every "penny stock" listed in the article -- nearly all of these businesses have an Altman z-score of 1.8 or less, which is a statistical warning sign that a company is at a relatively high risk of going bankrupt in the next couple of years, with a false positive rate of around 20%. Shareholders of companies that file for bankruptcy usually lose 70% of their investment. So an investment in one of these companies has an 80% chance of losing 70% of invested money. Many of these companies have never demonstrated they can run for a year and make an operating profit, one of them has a history of corruption allegations and is carrying liabilities that exceed assets (helloo rolls royce), and one of them is another food delivery startup, so once covid is over it will go back to losing money along with the rest of that industry. It's unclear if the expected return of investing in these stocks is better than investing in a lottery ticket -- at least with a UK lottery ticket, in the long run, if you bought enough lottery tickets you would expect to win enough prizes to cover half the cost of the tickets!
posted by are-coral-made at 12:22 AM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
out of curiosity i went through every "penny stock" listed in the article -- nearly all of these businesses have an Altman z-score of 1.8 or less, which is a statistical warning sign that a company is at a relatively high risk of going bankrupt in the next couple of years, with a false positive rate of around 20%. Shareholders of companies that file for bankruptcy usually lose 70% of their investment. So an investment in one of these companies has an 80% chance of losing 70% of invested money. Many of these companies have never demonstrated they can run for a year and make an operating profit, one of them has a history of corruption allegations and is carrying liabilities that exceed assets (helloo rolls royce), and one of them is another food delivery startup, so once covid is over it will go back to losing money along with the rest of that industry. It's unclear if the expected return of investing in these stocks is better than investing in a lottery ticket -- at least with a UK lottery ticket, in the long run, if you bought enough lottery tickets you would expect to win enough prizes to cover half the cost of the tickets!
posted by are-coral-made at 12:22 AM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Not sure if you're still watching this thread, but YottaSavings is a savings account that sort of works like a lottery. It's a prize-linked savings account, which means it's FDIC insured and the amount you deposit turns into something like lottery tickets that have numbers drawn every day for a chance to win big prizes. To be clear, it is entirely savings...this costs nothing. But it feels a little like buying lottery tickets.
posted by msbrauer at 6:36 AM on March 11, 2021
posted by msbrauer at 6:36 AM on March 11, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
For me, it was very stressful. But, it's so easy to, say, in my case, hear about the new pfizer vaccine, buy a short call, watch $80 turn in to $160 in two hours, then watch it turn into $30 two hours after that, then hold on to it for two more days until it's worth $0.
posted by bbqturtle at 12:34 PM on November 24, 2020 [8 favorites]