One of the surest ways to lose money in the long run is to play the lottery every week. The more you play them, the more likely you are to meet the overall probability of the game you're playing. The odds are never in your favor.
Regardless of where the money raised from the lottery actually goes, it boils down to a tax. A tax on people who don't understand, or who willfully ignore, statistics.
One of my teachers in high school played a pick-three game. He had a number of theories he relied on to pick his numbers. Some of them were based on whether or not the previous few days had any repeating digits. He told me about this, and I said that what the number were yesterday has no bearing on what they are today. (Even as a high school student, I got this.)
Well, to this day I'm sure he thinks I'm full of baloney. The next day, that good ol' boy won over $400 on the pick-three game. (“See? I TOLD YA!”)
Another guy (a laundromat attendant) was absolutely convinced that people who live in New York City have a lottery advantage over the rest of the state … because more people live there. I wish I were joking.
But if you play the lottery anyway, at least do it right
But, I will concede that people should be free to spend their money as they see fit, and if you've calculated that buying a $1 lottery ticket gives you at least $1 worth of entertainment, there would likely be nothing I could say that would convince you otherwise.
So, here's a tip for maximizing your moonshot. I can't offer any advice on picking winning numbers. But I will share some advice on how to pick numbers that, if they are the winning numbers, will be more likely to net you the entire jackpot.
Don't choose numbers in any kind of simple pattern.
Joe Taxpayer addressed this question on a math site. His response (emphasis mine):
You should never bet on that kind of sequence … the odds of any sequence from 000000000 through 999999999 has an equal probability. And if the prize is the same for all winners, it's fine. But, for shared prizes, you will find that you just beat 10 million to 1 odds only to split the pot with dozens of people. To be clear, the odds are the same, no argument. But people's bets will not be 100% random. They will bet your number as well as a pattern of 2's or other single digits. They will bet 1234567. I can't comment whether pi's digits are a common pattern, but the bottom line is to avoid obvious patterns for shared prizes.
Here are a few ways to do this:
- Use a random number generator. A real one. Don't ask your buddies at work. Random.org is a good one.
- Use numbers from a variety of sources that are significant to you. The numbers can have significance to you. (Why not? They're as likely to win as numbers that you hate.) Just make sure they don't paint any pretty patterns on the card when you fill them in.
- And please … PLEASE! … don't choose the same numbers as your friend for the same lottery. Sorry. You didn't need me to say that.
Happy picking, if that's your thing.
I’ve known countless people over the years that believe in everything there is that they are going to win the ‘big one’ someday so they keep playing. I’ve played, I can’t deny it, temptation is there when you can win millions of dollars. It’s truly luck. If there were a formula that worked, everyone would win and then the fun is gone.
I never thought about it, but that is a good point. About once every five years I buy a couple of lottery tickets when the jackpot is enormous, if there is not line to wait in and I am in the seeling venue anyway. I just let the system pick them for me. Not unsurprisingly, I have never won.
I hope your old high school teacher wasn’t in charge of the maths department!
I’ve never seen anyone give advice about how to play the lottery, but if you are going to play this is what you should do. If I find out someone is going to be playing the lottery its I’ll be passing this on to them.
Thanks for the mention, John! Questions like this are fun to consider and the results are often counterintuitive. I wonder if anyone has studied the numbers of lotteries that had split pots vs single winners. I’d wager the split pots had numbers that were below 31, representing the fact that people tend to use birthdates to help choose numbers.