So. You want to know how to win a million dollars.
Who doesn’t?
The thing to remember about trying to win a million dollars online or even on Wheel of Fortune is that it’s never guaranteed. Big rewards come with big risks and long odds.
But it IS possible.
This post explains multiple ways you might try to win $1,000,000 for yourself.
Table of Contents
How to Win a Million Dollars Online
When I searched Google for “how to win a million dollars online,” I got back lots of results about how to become a millionaire. All involved starting your own business on the internet.
Becoming an entrepreneur is arguably a more “legit” way to become a millionaire. But how-to articles about becoming an internet entrepreneur wasn’t quite what I was looking for. This is a problem with how Google generates results these days, but I’ll save that rant for another day.
When I try the same search on Bing, I get articles about gambling online, which is more what I was looking for. It’s an interesting contrast in the search results.
If you want to win a million dollars online, probably the easiest way is to live in a state where you can buy lottery tickets online. Then you have to win the lottery. I think you already know that’s a long shot.
No lottery? You can always try the PCH Sweepstakes. I knew a guy who won that 20 years ago.
But I’ll have more to say about that later in the post.
You can also win a million dollars online by betting on sports or by playing progressive slot machines on the internet. I’ll have more to say about both those subjects later in this post, too.
How to Win a Million Dollars on Wheel of Fortune?
Another option is to get on Wheel of Fortune. This kind of large jackpot wasn’t always available, and it’s only within the last couple of years that anyone has won a million playing Wheel of Fortune. The million dollar wedge on the wheel, though, has been there since 2008.
And it’s not enough to just get lucky and have the wheel land on the million dollar wedge. You not only have to get it to land there twice, but you also have to solve both puzzles.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to winning a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune:
- Get on the show as a contestant. This isn’t the easiest thing in the world to pull off, actually. Lots of people want to play. The first step in that process is to apply on their website.
- Then you have to spin the wheel and land on the million dollar wedge. That’s not so easy, either — the odds are 71 to 1. Doing this means that during the final round, the $100,000 is replaced with $1,000,000.
- Finally, you have to make it to the final round, land on the million dollar wedge again, and solve the puzzle. Sound hard? Of course it is. Did you think it would be easy?
Without accounting for the odds of failing to solve the puzzle, the odds of winning a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune are close to 2000 to 1. That’s still not bad compared to other methods.
Has Anyone Won a Million Dollars on Wheel of Fortune?
Even though it’s a huge longshot, people HAVE won a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune.
Here’s a list of people who have won that much money playing Wheel of Fortune:
- Melissa Joan Hart
- Autumn Erhard
- Michelle Loewenstein
- Sarah Manchester
This list might be incomplete by the time you read it. Someone else — maybe even you — might need their names added to the list.
If so, please let me know in the comments.
How to Win a Million Dollars Playing Mega Millions or Powerball
Winning the lottery might be the first thing you think of when brainstorming ways to win a million dollars. When I was growing up, that’s the ONLY way I’d ever heard of.
Different states have their own draw games, and these often hit $1 million.
But the big multi-state games always offer well over a million dollars. Those games are Powerball and Mega Millions. Both have starting jackpots of $20 million.
The odds of winning one of these jackpots are far longer than the odds of winning that much money on The Wheel of Fortune, though. You’re looking at a 1 in 300 million shot at best.
And tickets for these games cost $2 for the basic game, but you also have the option to place another $1 bet to activate the “Megaplier” in Mega Millions. This increases the potential jackpot, but it also means spending $3 on a ticket.
There’s no magic strategy for winning the lottery, though. You buy a ticket, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Don’t believe ANY online guru who tries to tell you that he has a strategy for winning the lottery that works.
Richard Lustig is one of the worst purveyors of this kind of nonsense. Please don’t waste your money on such.
Also, compare the odds of winning the lottery with the odds of winning a bet on who will be the next pope. You’ll notice that the odds of winning are much better, but the payout is correspondingly lower.
The Best Ways to Win the Lottery
Michael Bluejay compares the odds of winning the lottery with the odds of winning a progressive slot machine on his website about Vegas. It’s really clear that the odds are better with a state lottery (as opposed to one of the multi-state games.)
He suggests in his strategy for winning a million dollars to take a spin on a Megabucks slot machine once a day. If you don’t want to go to the casino once a day for this, you could go once a week and make 7 spins.
You could translate this into one of the best ways to win the lottery easily enough.
Set a budget for how much you want to spend on lottery tickets, and then buy that many tickets during the weekly drawing. If you’re playing a lottery that has 2 drawings a week, just split that budget in two.
For example, the Texas Lottery only costs $1 to play, and they have 2 drawings a week. Let’s say you’re willing to risk $20 a week on lottery tickets.
You just buy 10 tickets for the first drawing each week, and then you just buy 10 tickets for the second drawing that week.
Of course, this means you’re buying $1000+ in lottery tickets a year, but that might be worth it for you.
I don’t suggest spending more than 1% of your annual income on gambling, though. Anything more is just a foolish waste of money.
How to Win a Million Dollars on Progressive Slots Like Megabucks
This site has a detailed post explaining everything you might ever want to know about Megabuck slots from IGT. In many ways, it’s a slot machine that’s not much different from one of the big lottery games.
Like MegaMillions and Powerball, Megabucks is a progressive jackpot game. The word “progressive,” in this context, means that it progressively gets larger until someone wins.
Also, Megabucks is a dinosaur of a game. IGT launched the game in 1986 as the first WAP (wide-area progressive) slot machine in the world. A “wide-area progressive” jackpot is one in which machines over a large geographical area feed the size of the jackpot.
It costs $3 per spin to play Megabucks, and the biggest difference between this slot machine game and a lottery drawing is the rate of play. It’s relatively easy to make 500-700 spins on a slot machine game in an hour. That’s an outlay of between $1500 and $2100 in wagers.
It would be very unusual to buy $1500 – $2100 worth of lottery tickets at one time.
Even if the payback percentage were about the same — and keep in mind we don’t know what the payback percentage for Megabucks is — you’d see a big loss in a short time playing Megabucks versus the lottery.
Let’s be generous and assume you get 50% of your money back in winnings. Do you really want to gamble $750 – $1050 in an hour on a 1 in 50 million chance of winning $10 million or more?
Also, depending on which lottery game you play, your probability of winning a jackpot is often at least twice as good as that, even if the jackpot is smaller. (See the article from Michael Bluejay that I linked to earlier in this post.)
How to Win a Million Dollars Betting on Sports
Betting on sports is one of the few ways where a gambler can gamble with a mathematical edge. Most sports bettors have a different strategy than getting lucky and hitting a big one-time jackpot, though. They try to stay in action with bets that are a low percentage of their bankroll so they can make money consistently from their sports betting activities over time.
Also, let’s be honest — most (maybe all) sportsbooks are going to turn down a $1.1 million bet that pays off at $1,000,000. Even sportsbooks that cater to whales limit the size of their sports wagers.
Besides, most people reading blog posts about how to win a million dollars don’t have $1.1 million to risk.
Legit advantage gamblers in the sportsbetting game risk 1% of their bankroll per bet. This means that if you want to bet $10 per event, you need a bankroll of $1000.
It might seem impossible to achieve $1 million in winnings at that rate, but keep in mind a couple of things:
- You probably won’t be making just one bet per day or per week.
- As your bankroll grows, your average bet grows along with it. Read a little about the effect of compound interest, and you’ll understand how powerful even a 55% win rate can be for a sports bettor with discipline.
Winning a million dollars in sports betting is also something you can do overnight, but that means placing parlay bets. You can find detailed parlay betting strategy advice here.
Want to learn more about successful sports bettors?
Check out this interview with Billy Walters — he’s one of the most successful sports bettors in the history of gambling.
Winning a Million Playing Texas Hold’em or Other Poker Games
Like sports betting, playing poker is a game of skill rather than a game of chance. You can grind things out over time playing poker, just like you can with sports betting.
But you can also go for the big jackpot overnight by playing in big tournaments. The most notable of these is the World Series of Poker, although you CAN find other poker tournaments with a top prize of $1 million or more.
My favorite guide to the World Series of Poker can be found at Beat the Fish. It’s one of the rare gambling information sites run by an individual — and an individual who knows what he’s talking about.
The trick with the World Series of Poker and other big poker tournaments is being skilled enough to achieve a positive ROI. The other trick is having a big enough poker bankroll to handle the swings — even the best poker player in the tournament is likely to lose.
Profiting from big poker tournaments doesn’t just to have to involve winning, either. Steve Badger has a great article on his site about getting sponsored to play in the World Series of Poker. If you’re interested in that, you should read his page and pay attention to what it takes to pull this off.
The Easiest and Fastest Way to a Million Dollars
The easiest and fastest way to win a million dollars is to play the lottery. The only flaw with this strategy is that the odds of winning are so low. And the expected return for lottery games is so low that in the long run it’s a losing proposition.
Basically, you should spend money on lottery tickets the same way you might “invest” in Bitcoin. Don’t risk a lot of money. If you’re putting more then 1% of your income into any kind of gambling, you’re doing it wrong.
Other ways of winning a million dollars have similarly low odds.
If I were on a quest to make a million dollars, I’d open some kind of online business. Another option might be to play poker or learn how to win at sports betting. The odds are way better, but the time frame is different.
It’s not easy to win a million dollars playing poker, and it’s not fast, either.
But, the probability of success is much greater if you’re willing to do the work.
What to Do if You Win a Million Dollars
If you do win a million dollars, your headaches are just beginning. It would be unrealistic to say that your life won’t improve, but you should still be smart about your new riches and try to make sensible decisions.
I’m the type that would want to share the good news with family and friends. I think that’s a mistake, though. Keep your mouth shut. You might tell your AA sponsor, your priest, or your therapist.
The truth is that when people know you’ve won a million dollars, they’re going to assume that you have infinite funds, so why shouldn’t you help them out.
The problem is — and this is from firsthand experience, by the way — “loans” and gifts of $1000 add up faster than you think. One of the reasons I’m not longer rich after making a million dollars is because of the death of a thousand cuts by helping out so many friends.
My other suggestions probably seem obvious. Find an attorney and a financial advisor that you trust. Their fees will be worth it.
Pay your taxes right away. Don’t delay this. Depending on how you win your million dollars, that might be taken care of you at the time you win, but if not — take care of it immediately.
Also, pay off your debts. There’s no point in paying outrageous interest rates on debt when you have the money to pay it off. Debt can also be part of the death of a thousand cuts I mentioned earlier.
Conclusion: How to Win $1,000,000
The answer to the question how to win $1,000,000 is “any way you want.” I’ve listed multiple routes to that destination, but it’s up to you which routes you want to take.
It’s also up to you to decide between relatively probable ways to win a million dollars and easy, fast ways to win a million dollars. Those are never the same thing.
