By: Helen Polaski
Need a winning lotto strategy? Forget about paying someone to cough up a hair-brained scheme for predicting the next winning lottery number for you. Forget about purchasing lotto software. While soothsayers claim they may be able to help you win the lottery, few can claim to have won based on these methods. What these people have actually done is found one of the real ways to make money at the lottery, by writing books about it.
The lottery is a game of chance, and the numbers really are random. It's best to play just for fun. With that in mind, there are a few strategies you can use to get the most for your money.
Use a Strategy to Save Money
If you have some type of personal lotto strategy in place, chances are you won't be tempted to bet more money than you can afford. Betting on the few numbers that feel right to you each week is a better method than dropping wads of money on the counter in desperation.
Check the odds for different games. Daily games generally have the highest percentage of winning tickets. Multistate games with massive jackpots have the lowest odds. Spending on games with good odds gives you the best shot of winning over time, even if the prize isn't as big. Resist the urge to spend a lot of money chasing big jackpots; you only need one ticket to win.
Tips for Building Your Lotto Strategy
The lottery is a form of legalized gambling. There is always hope that you could win, but it's important that you go into the game knowing it's only a game.
- Have a positive attitude. Channel the book, The Secret, and remember that good things only come to you when you think good thoughts. Picture yourself writing in the numbers you want to play, and then picture yourself winning.
- Play within limits. Statistics show that the people who win most often are those who play most often. In other words, you can't win if you don't play. However, the majority of the people who play the lotto lose more than they ever win. That's what keeps the games profitable for state governments. Play on a regular basis, but set a strict budget and stick to it.
- Watch the game and analyze it from every angle. Get to learn the mechanics of the game and you'll gain some insight into picking numbers with a higher chance of winning. In Powerball, for example, it's possible for the Powerball number to be a duplicate of one of the regular numbers. This happens so rarely that it's probably not a smart bet to match your Powerball number to one of your regular numbers.
- Do not choose all high numbers or all low numbers. These combinations rarely hit. Also do not choose numbers in a sequence. The 1-2-3-4-5 combination in Mega Millions has never hit. Likewise, do not choose numbers that end in the same digit, such as 1-11-21-31, etc. These combinations rarely come up.
- Think twice about numbers based on dates. The problem with picking dates is that you are limited to the numbers 1 through 31, which is the number of days in a month. You could be missing out on half of the numbers available in some games.
- Find the winning sellers. Some believe that certain locations or certain dealers sell more winning tickets than others. Lottery conspiracy theorists claim that low-income areas get a disproportionate amount of winners, though this can easily be explained by those areas having more lottery agents who sell a higher number of tickets. Lottery agents along state borders tend to sell a lot of winning tickets because of the huge volume of out-of-state business they get when jackpots break the $100 million barrier. It's unlikely that there's any truth behind the idea of "lucky" lottery agents, but if it adds to your enjoyment, head a bit out of your way in search of one.
- Choose the same numbers. When you play the same numbers day in and day out, or with every weekly drawing, you have slightly better odds than someone who always chooses new numbers or who uses Quick Picks. The advantage comes because the probability of your numbers winning increases each time they don't win. It's a tiny fraction of a percentage, but it's also a great way to control your lottery spending.
- Choose different numbers. Alternatively, you can choose new numbers for every game. This lets you take advantage of patterns that you've noticed in recent drawings. Perhaps you want to choose certain numbers because they come up over and over again, or you want to eliminate those numbers for the same reason. If you follow this strategy, keep in mind that every drawing is random. Any patterns that you see are merely coincidence, but some people have been able to capitalize on these coincidences.
- Choose Easy Pick each time you play. Each time you purchase an Easy Pick ticket, the numbers are randomly drawn, just like the numbers in the actual drawing. It may seem like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet, but it's made a few multimillionaires through the years.
- Don't forget to check your numbers. Millions of dollars are lost every year simply because winners lose their lottery tickets, run them through the laundry or simply forget they bought a ticket and never check the numbers. Most lotteries keep several months' worth of winning numbers archived on their Web sites, so dig out those tickets to see if you've got an unexpected windfall.
