For anyone thinking about LTW let me give an analogy (it may also be able to read across to other MLMs).
Imagine you're in an arcade and choose to play on a coin pusher machine (one of my favourites!). You choose a machine to play on and see that there's a £5 in the middle, you aim to get that £5 note out by playing lots of 2p pieces.
So you plough in lots of 2ps and you can see the £5 note coming closer to the edge, but it's taking a while, the owners of the machine though encourage you to keep playing and to focus on the goal of winning the £5 note.
A couple of your friends walk by and wonder what you're up to. You tell them about this brilliant game where you can get £5 if you try hard enough. You point to two more £5 at the back of the coin pusher which can be theirs. The owners of the machine are excited that you've got two people to help you win and promise to give you back 10% of any of the coins your friends put in.
After a while the note gets closer and closer then, "plop!" down it comes - hurrah! You're £5 richer! You and your friends celebrate (#successday), seeing you get the £5 spurs them to get their £5 note so they plough more 2p pieces into the machine, but it's not coming fast enough so they get their friends involved (cue excited owners and more 10% promises!).
Because of your £5 success you don't initially realise that you've actually ploughed £10 worth of 2p pieces in. So to ensure you make your money back and more, you encourage your friends to put more 2p pieces into the machine and that maybe they should get more people involved (the owners are pleased and offer you 5% back on any money your friends' friends put in!).
Eventually you're allowed to play on bigger machines with bigger notes in, but you realise you still need your friends' help, so whilst they're encouraging their friends to get £5 notes, you're encouraging them to help you get that lovely looking £10 note.
You still get some of the 2p pieces back (they fall out the front of the machine and you plough them back into it), but look at the corners of the coin pusher, there are little slots where alot of the 2p pieces are falling into and all that money goes to the owners.
If you get alot of friends to help you "win" the cash prize, you actually get it very quickly, plus you realise that because you're not having to plough as much money in and your friends are, you're actually making a profit - yippee! But you know that all the people who've helped you make a profit are actually losing money still - but you still encourage they to keep on playing because they can be just like you!
So yes, you can make money, but there are a hell of alot of people you've directly or indirectly got involved in playing who aren't making money. Some will give up before they make a profit, some couldn't afford to play in the first place but liked the idea they might win. All the while the owners are sitting back and smiling as for very little input (they pay for the upkeep of the machines and some advertising) they're now scraping off hundreds if not thousands of 2p pieces and only have to drop in the odd £5 or £10 note every so often.
It's a long read, but worth it I think as this is pretty much how it all happens.