I just saw an interview with this guy on one of the “news” channels, and he’s kind of a dick.
They anchor pointed out that most experts say the chance of winning is no different whether you pick your own numbers or not, and that if you do win, the chance of sharing the prize is lower with quick-pick numbers.
His answer had nothing to do with attempting to refute these valid points. He snarkily replied “How many jackpots have they won?” In fact, I think he used this retort more than once. I kind of stopped listening to the jerk.
My theory: decide how much money you really need to win to make a significant impact in your life. Let’s say it’s $100,000. In Michigan, you can play a Fantasy 5 game with a $100,000 top prize and face odds of 1 in 575,757. Why buck the odds of 1 in 175,711,536 to win the Mega Millions when your odds of winning are 305 times better playing Fantasy 5? Those godzilla jackpots draw you into a game that you have incredibly little chance of winning, why bother when you have a much better chance at a life changing win playing the smaller games?
Ages ago, there was a great article in a German magazine about winners of lotteries.
One story was about a woman who had asked her granddaughter to go play lottery for her on her way home, as it was snowy and she didn’t want to go outside.
She gave the granddaughter the money and off she went.
Grandma got to thinking her granddaughter probably spent the money on candy or magazines instead, so she got dressed and went out to play her numbers.
Yep. Grandma won the lottery!
And yep, granddaughter had indeed bought tickets as well.
There were three winning tickets that week, splitting the prize in thirds - and grandma now owned TWO of them.
Right, so the best advice is to play 3 numbers 31 or below, and 3 that are 32 or above. People who play birthdays will most like play all 6 numbers at 31 or below. People who are contrarians will pick the 32 and higher numbers. The secret to investing is diversification, my friends!
The best way to win this lottery is going to be to buy 172 million tickets, with every possible combination. Or if you want to be thrifty and settle for a little more risk, just buy 86 million tickets for a 50/50 chance of winning.
Of course you could go the other way, and spend 540 million dollars on tickets that all have the same number. Then hope you win. And then laugh at the other 2 or 3 people who also won, but will only get a few pennies after the jackpot is split up proportionately.
Hee. I’ve always wondered if that was possible/feasible. I always just assumed that the lottery commission would make you buy each ticket individually if you wanted to do that, thus making it a time/resource sink.
The lottery in Thailand (single 6-digit number for grand prize, other numbers for lesser prizes) works differently than America’s Pick-Six, but I can offer a tip for it.
Unfortunately this conflicts with my own lottery strategy, which is to avoid buying from vendors by pretending their numbers aren’t pretty enough. Now they save all their quadruple-digit tickets for me and of course I then have to buy them! :smack:
Hmmmm. Checking the recent grand-prize winners I see multiple digits, e.g. 451445 and 648684. Maybe the lottery riggers are back in business and we should hop on their coattails while they remain uncaught.
This reminds me of something I saw on a poker forum. They had a section for other gambling games and someone was asking for a “strategy” for playing baccarat. Since the game is basically the same as flipping a coin, this made me go :dubious:
