This is the first of three tips I’m going to release over the next few games in our lotto coverage. Lotto Tip No. 1 is to purchase your lotto ticket(s) early. It’s easier, and if you can’t afford to do it every single day, at least every week or month, at least do it every other day.
If you’re like me, you probably work three jobs to support yourself and your family. I don’t want to be like that. I want to have a full-time job that I can quit whenever I want to. (Obviously, not every day, nor even every week. I have to keep my budget cover. It’s also not a wise financial decision to commit yourself to that kind of lifestyle when you’re young and trying to start your career and support yourself and your family. It’s a big commitment. But I want to be able to support myself and my family for years, if not decades, if I have to. And I want to be able to argue with my wife about things like this.
So, I went back to the three lottery tips I gave you in the previous article, and followed those three rules over and over and over. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Women Are Forest Gazing Losers. Lottery betting is the domain of losers. In the past 5 years or so, the Powerball jackpot has averaged less than $3 million per drawing. The Mega Millions average is about $3.5 million per drawing. The Pick 5 average is about $1.5 million per drawing.That’s small compared to the jackpot-winning lotto games, but that’s because the sizes of the prizes in the pick 5 and Powerball (and even lotteries) are only a small percentage of the total amounts withdrawn from the various lotteries. In percentage terms of the total prizes withdrawn, a Powerball prize of $1.5 million is just the average of the Powerball prizes of the various drawings.
A $1.5 million Powerball jackpot, say, last week, would have required you to buy $150 million lottery tickets. You could have played, say, 150 million different number combinations. That’s 15,983,816 different combinations. Buying 15,983,816 combinations would require you to buy 45 pounds of tickets. That’s about $7,200,000 in new tickets. And that’s if you buy the most basic hard tickets, which may have a chance of winning. Most people play “exact match” or “quick-picks.” They pick their numbers, then rely on the computer system or house lotteries to choose the numbers for them. “Exact match” means the numbers match the exact order as drawn by the lottery machine. If they don’t match, nobody wins. The odds of winning, at 45 to 1, are about the same as winning the Powerball lottery odds.
Buy more tickets. Consider, if you buy 100 pairs of hot matched numbers (five in the Dewatogel and 25 in the Pick 5), you have a 1 in 5 chance of winning. If you buy 100,000 pairs of cold unmatched numbers (no Powerball or Pick 5 tickets in your pocket), you have a 1 in 4 chance. That’s clearly a better chance of winning, even though the prizes may be smaller.
Play more tickets. This may be as simple as you want to get, but if you keep pressing the “play” button, you might get lucky. Hey, maybe you’ll be on that train.
Reputable lotteries that have good websites offer “season” plans. They run regular games, then when the roll is good (full cycle of the lotteries) during the summer, they offer larger drawings with larger prizes. That means more money for you if you have a favorite lottery.
Don’t play birthday lotteries. They have no logic. Why bother paying attention to a six-month old? Save yourself the trouble and buy your tickets for the big one.
Don’t play multiple combinations. Six numbers is the average number of combinations people play. There’s plenty of opportunity to take advantage of easy ways to win.
Don’t play half-way completed sets of numbers. Four or five numbers marked off the grid don’t mean jackpot. They can mean plenty of money for anyone who can name the right three numbers.
Be realistic. Even if you do win, keep an eye on the winnings. Most big lottery wins are never achieved because the draw exceeded the player’s budget of the particular lottery draw.
Budget yourself and play within your limits. If you choose your lottery numbers carefully, you can afford to buy more tickets than you might think you need.