It’s time to play the lottery. Great!
But wait, do you know the fundamentals of winning?
If you want to win the lottery, then you have to know what it takes to win.
And you can improve your chances of winning if you know how to use math. I am talking about probability theory specifically.
Now, if this probability theory thing sounds too technical, you have to read my article How to Win the Lottery According to Math. You need to understand the fundamentals first.
Abraham Lincoln said:
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the axe.
It’s the same thing in the lottery. The lottery is like a war. Your worst enemy is the odds of the lottery. Therefore, you must learn how to play, so you win.
Sun Tzu said:
The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought
Now that you want to play the lottery, I recommend that you stop for a while and think about your strategy.
Here are some suggestions:
Table of Contents
Play the best pattern
The key to picking good numbers with a high likelihood of winning is in the pattern. Put the power of probability theory in your playing strategy, and your number selection strategy will greatly improve. Once you know the best patterns, you will feel confident that you are not wasting your money. You know what works and what doesn’t.
Now, in lotteries, there are basic combinatorial patterns that you should need to know. These patterns have different ratios of success to failure depending on their odd-even and low-high compositions.
A pattern with the best ratio will give you more ways to win and fewer ways to lose. In lotteries that give players more instances of losing, the strategy that will lessen these failures is always welcome.
For example, in the Massachusetts Lottery Megabucks Doubler game, the best odd-even pattern a player can use among the 7 available patterns is 3-odd-3-even. With 4,655,200 ways to win and 9,328,616 ways to lose, it offers the best ratio of 1 to 2.
The worst pattern is 6-even because it has 134,596 ways to win and 13,849,220 ways to fail. Its ratio is 1 to 103. The best pattern has roughly 51 times better ratio than the worst pattern.
Yet, the basic combinatorial analysis also requires looking at the low-high composition of a combination. For this game, the low-high patterns are
To determine the low and high numbers, divide the number field into 2.
The best pattern is 3-low-3-high. It has 33 occurrences in 100 draws. The worst low-high pattern is 6-high. It has the lowest probability value of 0.0096251266464032, so it might actually not appear at all in 100 draws.
Obviously, a sensible player will not bet on a combination that he knows will only make all his 100 attempts fail.
Let us apply this analysis on 1-2-3-4-5-6, which 10,000 people pick every week.
It has the best odd-even ratio but the lowest low-high ratio. There is a clear contradiction in the odd-even and low-high patterns. Yet, this should not force you to give this strategy of the combinatorial pattern up.
You may change some numbers to reconcile the opposing ratios. Alternatively, consider advanced combinatorial patterns and design.
The second option eliminates the potential problems of contradicting odd-even and low-high ratios. You will immediately know which groups your numbers belong to.
You will instantly see if your combination lacks the crucial balance in composition. An acceptable combination is one with adequate representation of numbers from the number groups.
With advanced combinatorial patterns, you will also immediately see which are best, worst, good, and bad. This way, you save time, money, and effort by concentrating only on the best patterns with the best ratios to offer.
The best patterns will also dominate the game as the number of draws increases. This means it will take fewer draws for the best pattern to occur than other patterns for a game.
Timing is of the essence
Once you’ve chosen your pattern, you must know its probability. The probability will tell you exactly when to play the lottery. For instance, if your pattern just occurred yesterday, it’s highly unlikely to occur in the next draw. It will take some more draws before the same pattern will reoccur. How do you know when? It’s with the help of probability theory. The best thing about this timing strategy is that it gives you a chance to save money while you wait for the right moment.
From the table above, pattern #1 has the probability value of 0.0530121392.
Thus, in 2,000 draws, it could give you 106 chances to match the winning combination. It is the best pattern to use, but there are draws when it does not likely occur. You cannot expect it to occur in at least 2 consecutive draws.
You may skip playing during the idle period of about 19 draws. Take note intervals are only approximate and not exact values. During the idle period, set aside your lottery budget to buy more tickets the next time you will play.
Follow the plan consistently even if the jackpot is small
You know the strategy – you’ve got to play more lines to increase your chances of winning the jackpot. See why you have to play more lines.
And, of course, the budget. I can’t highly stress enough the importance of budgeting. When I talk about budgeting, I mean literally “saving” extra money for entertainment purposes. The lottery is only entertainment. It can never be a source of a full-time income. Spend your money investing in yourself rather than in the lottery.
When you have enough savings, enough lines, great timing, go ahead and play according to the game plan.
The jackpot prize may keep on increasing because no one is winning the big prize. This makes the jackpot prize bigger than the previous one. But you should never look at the jackpot prize to affect your action. Whether it’s the minimum jackpot prize or higher, play the lottery with the money you save. When the jackpot is huge, a horde of players rushes to the lotto station to play. The possibility of sharing your big prize is highly likely.
So when the jackpot keeps rolling over, play.
Please put your signature on the back of all the tickets.
If you sign your ticket, no one can steal it from you. A lotto ticket is a bearer instrument, meaning if you lost your ticket, anyone can claim the prize. If you sign your name, only you can claim the prize upon presenting a valid ID.
Think like a winner
Additionally, when you play the lottery, do it with a positive outlook that you will win. Think positive so that you attract positive results. I don’t want to be superstitious, but thinking negatively won’t do any good either. Hey, this is the lottery, and you are playing to have fun. It’s not fun when you worry about not winning. Part of the fun is the excitement that you will possibly win the grand prize. So when you are at it, claim it. If you lose, come back another day. The most important thing here is the fun.
If you know that you have chosen the best number patterns in the lottery, you are confident with your play. Being confident is very important because it makes you think positively about winning.
Please read my article How To Win The Lottery According To Math if you don’t know how number pattern works.
