Could Virtual World Direct be described as a scam?

There are varying comments about Virtual World Direct and how it may fall into the same category as other MLM schemes and be a scam whereby only the people at the top of the tree make money, from the people at the bottom of the tree paying their weekly fee and advertising the scheme to try and attract other users.

Well if it is a scam, it is working really well for a lot of people - it was set up in April 2002 by Tom Brodie and Len Fitzgerald and continues to be popular.

Unlike many other MLM schemes, you do not have to introduce other people to make money - you can do it by the various syndicate wins on the National Lottery and EuroMillions draws - although admittedly, with the average win being only £40, it does not go far between 49 players in a syndicate.

For those unfamiliar with virtualworlddirect, it is basically an online Lottery syndicate, covering both the main UK Lotto and Euro Millions draws every week. Players who join the eLottery benefit from a massively increased chance of winning compared to playing on their own (winnings are sent out via cheque), and never have to remember to buy their tickets again. For affiliates, it gets even better – You get paid 20% commission on the e-Lottery subscription fees of every player you refer for life.

We haven't paid into the scheme now for quite some while, and still religously earn both commission and winnings, so where is the scam? We can check the syndicate's numbers against each draw every week and if need be there would be the ability to sue the site if they did fail to distribute a big win - but this has not happened (and try searching the internet to find someone who failed to receive their commission or winnings from the site!).

So is it a big scam?

Well we are wholly independent - our contact details are freely available on the rwapsoftware.co.uk website if you want to check. We don't have any other link with VWD other than having joined as an affiliate member. We receive regular payments and just sit back and dream of a big syndicate win.

Basically, so long as you can find 5 other people to sign up to the scheme (hardly a massive number), you can play the National Lottery for free and never have to worry about remembering to buy your ticket (or losing it) again.

GO on - give Virtual World Direct online lottery syndicates a go and see if your experiences match ours. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog as to how you get on.

We do not spend any money on advertising this - particularly as Google adwords block advertising about gambling sites (although still advertise the National Lottery - we are not quite sure what the difference is here). Yes we spend an hour or so a month promoting the site through our blog and other means, but that is not exactly a lot of effort.

Playing the National Lottery for Free

We have been asked a few times as to whether it is possible to play the National Lottery for free using the Virtual World Direct system, or whether in fact it is a scam.

Well the proof is in the pudding, so they say.

We have managed to refer a number of people to the Virtual World Direct online syndicate site, without needing a great deal of effort. This blog certainly appears to help drive traffic, and we don't do any paid for advertising - we just rely on the search engines finding relevant content on our pages.

Currently we have 41 syndicate members for whom we receive commission each week through the Virtual World Direct system, of which 9 are themselves VWD affiliates. It is interesting that quite a few of the affiliates have not yet taken the opportunity of paying to participate in the lottery themselves, and as they say, you have to be in it to win it.

From that small group of people, we receive on average £181 per month in commission, out of which it is easy to pay the £80 per month we pay for playing in online lottery syndicates (we take part in the National Lottery UK draw syndicate, the EuroMillions draw syndicate, the El Gordo lottery syndicate and the Spanish lottery syndicate), leaving a net profit of around £100 per month.

It is not difficult to refer people to the scheme, when they see the benefits of the multi-win online lottery system and also the opportunity to refer others and play for free, in just the same way as we have (in fact, if they follow our lead, people can make a profit each month!).

But then, the flip side has to be the question as to whether someone finds a benefit from playing in the National Lottery online sydnicates?

• Does it increase their chances of winning? A most definite yes - we tend to win at least once every 13 draws
• Can they win real money? Yes, your winnings are held on the system and you can easily request a cheque at any time, or payment via Moneybookers.
• Is it worth it? Well in 11 months of 2009, our syndicates have won
  UK National Lottery - £1334 (21 wins this year)
  EuroMillions Draw - £1067.74 (35 wins this year)
  Spanish Lottery - £884 (8 wins this year)
  

Well I guess the proof is definitely in the pudding - how many others can say that they have earned a total of nearly £200 from the National Lottery in 2009, without spending a penny?

EuroMillions - Why

When it was announced only last week that a syndicate in Liverpool and a lucky couple in South Wales had shared the top EuroMillions prize of £90 million (£45 million each) - they must have been over the moon. How lovely it would have been to go to work on the Monday, stick your fingers up to the bosses and tell them to stick their jobs - or maybe, just maybe, if you get 6 months full pay when off sick, you might just have to go on extended sick leave due to the stress of winning all that money!!

What would you do in such circumstances?

The other side to the coin is what you do about financial planning and your family. How many people would be expecting to share in your wealth, and if you gave your nearest and dearest even £1 million, would they then think how stingy you were because of the amount you had won? Playing in a syndicate certainly has its advantages in that case! You would also need to think about inheritance tax planning - if you give money away and die within 7 years, the tax man might just grab 40% of it or even the full £45 million if you passed away tomorrow. But then advice on tax planning and investment planning is also expensive - certainly you would not want to go somewhere that was going to charge 5% or more of the amount invested!

I guess in the long term, the best way might be to consider setting up a company which would have the £45 million to invest - it could purchase houses for you and family which were let rent free and then you could hand out shares in the company to friends and family if you wanted to spread your wealth - although again that has its pitfalls around the value of the shares on death, and also Corporation Tax and tax on dividends.

I mean, after having bought houses and cars for yourself, your family (or paid off their mortgages and debts), it would be drop in the ocean compared to the capital - you could expect to earn at least £5000 a day in interest without even trying! What would you do with the rest of the money?

Who knows - we can all but dream of what we would do.... It just reminds me of Brewster's millions, as fast as you could spend, you would be probably earning it back in interest!

Oh well - you have to be in it to win it, so they say... And when I won it I might just have to give some serious thought as to what I was going to do with it.

At least with the EuroMillions, this chance comes up often enough and through being in an online lottery syndicate, you have a much greater chance of winning a prize.

Talking of EuroMillions - I am not sure what they hope to achieve with the increase in the ticket price from £1.50 to £2 - yes, you get a raffle ticket which guarantees to pay one UK player £1million - but I am not sure if everyone wants to pay £2 for a ticket that they never win on.

At least Virtual World Direct has responded to this - you still only pay £5 a week for 36 entries into the Euromillions Draw but now you also get 36 raffle tickets. To pay for this, they have increased the number of people in each sydnicate to 59 which means you get a smaller share of the winnings - however, that has to be worth it, with EuroMillions still being one of the biggest lottery draws over Europe.

I still don't know why they don't expand into the thunderball draw, which gives better odds of winning the top prize. It would seem most suited to an online lottery syndicate scheme, as you could then be guaranteed to match the thunderball at least once every game!

Euromillions £90 million rollover again

Well the EuroMillions has again reached a massive rollover of £90million estimated jackpot. I am sure that we would all like to win that for Christmas, or even a share - so to ensure that you have the greatest chance of winning a prize in this jackpot, why not join the online syndicates which give you the best chance by providing you with 36 entries into the draw for only £5.

It is also good news to hear that the syndicates for the Euromillions Draw will also be amended to take account of the new Millionaire Raffle from National Lottery which will also include an entry into a raffle to win one player a guaranteed £1m per week, meaning you get another 36 chances to win a share of that £1m prize! This takes effect from 7th November, so who knows what November will bring to members of the Virtual World online Euromillions sydnicate.

Finally, a reminder that tickets for the Spanish super El Gordo lottery draw held annually at Christmas are now selling out fast, so you need to ensure you purchase your tickets early enough to get a chance at winning a share of £2Billion.

August - A good month for the lottery, not so the weather!

Well, having spent most of August indoors due to the British summer not living up to expectations, we have been hard at work promoting the lottery syndicate and exploring some of its better features.

It has also paid off...

We reduced the entries in the Spanish lottery syndicate to 1 entry as apparently they do not run the monthly draw in August, and used that money to enter another syndicate in the UK lottery.

We matched 3 balls on the UK National Lottery, and through the lottery syndicate method, this meant an extra £614 for our syndicate, plus one more win of £40 in August, we thought this was not too bad going

Add to that the fact that we also won four times on the Euromillions Lottery Draw - two lots of £123 for matching just two of the main balls, and a further £13.80 for matching a single main ball in another 2 draws.

That means a total amount won for our syndicates during August of £913.80, which we would never have achieved entering the lottery draws direct! And this is just for 4 entries in the Virtual World online lottery syndicates

Add to this, £154 received in commission for introducing other players to the online syndicate, and you can easily see how August was a bumper month for us.

OK - we are now 8 months through the year, so what have we got back for our weekly subscription to the Virtual World online lottery syndicates ?

Individual share of the winnings from UK National Lottery £22.37
Individual share of the winnings from Euromillions Lottery Draw £26.15
Individual share of the winnings from Spanish monthly Lottery £14.80
Commission: £1,406
Entry fees Paid £840

So that means, for 2009 to date, we are up by a total of £629.32 - you can really see how this system works to transform playing the lottery from a game of chance to a real business opportunity, even in these times of recession where every penny counts.

Bring on the British summer is all we can say!!

Yet another win

Well, several weeks have passed since my last post, and yes, I have received winnings on the National Lottery midweek draw, the EuroMillions draw and the Spanish lottery.

With 49 people in each syndicate, this does eat into your winnings, and commonly the prize ends up being less than £1, but heck, that is more that I ever get when playing the national lottery on my own!

What surprises me is why Virtual World Direct do not offer a syndicate entry into the Thunderball draw - with the Thunderball being between 1-15, they could actually play a syndicate of 15 or 30 players and you would be guaranteed at least one (or two) lines every week with the Thunderball. It would improve the rate you win, and reduce how many people share in the draw, and therefore make the whole thing more appealling.

Now wouldn't it be nice to win €140 Million

This Summer there is only one lottery with a GUARANTEED prize fund of €140 Million: the long-awaited "Sorteo Extraordinario" July Extraordinary draw, which takes place in Spain on Saturday, 4th July 2009.

Playing this lottery gives you the best possible chance of scooping your share of the jackpot because, unlike most lotteries, instead of having 1 jackpot the July Extraordinary draw has 10 jackpots.

You can increase your chances even more by playing in an e-lottery syndicate and sharing 10 tickets. Each ticket can win up to 8 times.

And that's not all. By playing in an e-lottery syndicate you will be GUARANTEED to share at least 1 cash prize in this draw.

So with 10 jackpots and a share of 10 tickets which can win up to 8 times each, make sure you secure your place today. After all, which other lottery system guarantees that you will win a prize in every draw - and yes, we have indeed won in every draw for the past 3 months!