When purchasing a lottery ticket, what you are purchasing is the opportunity for big wins and potential life changes. Lottery games range in form and size but all feature picking numbers out of a random selection machine and matching them against another set. While no guarantee can be given in any lottery game, ways can be taken to increase chances of success such as selecting less competitive games or purchasing tickets with multiple combinations available.
No matter how you select your numbers – whether using software, consulting astrology or asking friends about birthdays and favorite numbers – all random selections result in winning lottery prizes. So the key to ensuring your success with lottery wagers lies in picking numbers which have the highest likelihood of being drawn out.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to improve your odds by selecting different kinds of numbers, playing more often, or employing strategies based on statistics and combinatorial analysis. Some of the best strategies may not be as complicated as you think – here are a few tips:
Pick the Right Lotto Game
When selecting lottery games, start with low-hanging fruit: those that offer relatively small jackpot prizes with noncompetitive odds. Illinois Lucky Day Lotto for instance features an initial starting jackpot of $100,000 that increases with every unmatched number and offers odds that are 239 times easier than Powerball and 248 times better than Mega Millions.
As there’s no guarantee you will win, playing the lottery offers more socially acceptable gambling than betting on sports or horse races – as tickets are relatively inexpensive compared to sportsbook betting or racetrack gambling. Plus, lottery profits can still be put toward something productive (like retirement).
However, it’s important to keep in mind that gambling involves risk and there may always be the possibility that you won’t win. If you do happen to win big though, if you share it evenly with anyone who picked the same numbers. Also avoid common numbers such as birthdays or sequences like 1-2-3-4-5-6 since those are more likely to be selected than random numbers; Harvard professor Mark Glickman suggests using Quick Picks.
