I don’t play lotto very often. Sometimes when Powerball gets up over 100 million I’ll drop 10-20 bucks on games until someone wins (or I get tired of not winning)
I’ve almost always used the random pick numbers. I figure it is random chance at the numbers being drawn so planning out some scheme on picking my numbers seemed like a waste of time.
Last round was different.
I didn’t realize Powerball was up to 300 million until my wife and I were eating dinner the other night. We finished and they brought us our fortune cookies (which don’t even contain fortunes anymore, just sayings like “golly you’re swell and people know it” or “Smile and the world is your oyster”)
My wife noticed these “fortune” cookies had lucky numbers and said we should play them on the 300 million Powerball. We started joking about if we won the prize how much fun it would be to have our winning quote say “wow, fortune cookies really do know their shit”.
That night I looked on the Powerball website and noticed they had historic numbers going back to 2002. I thought as I was going to play two pre-defined numbers I might as well pick a few rounds this time.
I decided I’d play 12 games. 2 with our cookie numbers, 4 with the top drawn numbers, 1 with the least drawn numbers and 5 random. One of the cookie numbers paid $9 and one with the most hit numbers paid $12. At the end of the day I lost $5.
Now that the Powerball is at $340 million I replayed those numbers (only because I’m lazy and I still had the slips) for next week.
So dopers, let’s talk lotto games. Any method to your madness on picking lotto numbers? How much to you play? Do you play $1-2 games or $20-50 rounds? DO you play only when the jackpot gets large or a ticket every week? Anyone ever win anything worth writing home about?
I tried going with 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07, once, figuring that my chances were just as good as any other picks. I intentionally left out the 06. I didn’t win, and I’ve never seen numbers even similar to that come up since I’ve been following. This is in our 6/49 draws up here.
Other than occassionally doing something odd like that, I’ll usually just go with a quick pick that’s randomly generated.
I usually just get a Lucky Dip (UK) or Quick Pick (Ireland).
Here’s a bizarre fact about the UK Lottery for you. A former colleague used to work for the National Lottery Commission (of Oflot as it was when he worked there) and one of his tasks was to measure and weigh the balls, to check whether they came within the relevant specifications. Apparently, the green balls, numbers 30-39, were consistently heavier than the rest, towards but not exceeding the upper weight limit. The ten most frequently drawn numbers are (in order): 43, 25,33, 23, 35, 36, 7, 8, 14 and 26 - three green balls.
I only buy lottery tickets when the prize is really big, over 250 million or so. Usually that’s only a few times a year. I’ve never spent more than $5 on any one drawing, usually only $2. I know that it’s practically like throwing money away but I figure I get $5 of fun out of picking the numbers and dreaming about the winnings. Usually I let the computer pick, but this week I’m going to try picking my own numbers. I’ll probably use numbers that have good associations for me like the dates of my kids’ birthdays and suchlike. CubHubby buys an occasional scratchoff ticket when he buys gas, but I don’t really care for them, probably because the suspense and excitement are over so soon.
There actually is a trick to picking lottery numbers. The key is that even though draws might be random, you need to share your winnings with everyone else that won. Thus, to maximise expected take, you should aim to pick numbers nobody else is going to pick. Certain numbers like the aformentioned fortune cookie ones are very bad because lots of people pick them. Similarly, whole numbers, numbers that could be peoples birthdays and numbers with 7 are generally poor picks.
I believe a few years ago I read that the majority of lottery winners were those who used quick pick to pick their numbers.
I have to agree that 1,2,3,4,5,6 would be a poor choice. Not that those numbers are any less likely to be drawn, but if you win, you will have to share the prize with about 10,000 other people who play those numbers. Still a nice bit of change, but far less than if you were the sole winner.
My SO personally knows two different people who each won the lottery in Germany. The best I ever did was $3,500 on the German lottery (5 out of 6 numbers).
However, to answer How Do You Pick Numbers?
The answer is: poorly.
Have played here in the States for the past 18 years and I think I my biggest single win was $60 a few years back. Still…fun to dream.
The only thing that suggests to me is that the majority of people who play the lottery use quick picks.
The best answer to ‘how to pick lotto numbers’ is to simply choose numbers above 31 randomly. Use numbers above 31 so you eliminate all the people who pick birthdates. Other than that, it really doesn’t matter. The idea of staying away from 7’s is probably good as well, since some people think seven is a ‘lucky’ number.
If I played the lotto, I’d spend about five minutes working out what I thought was a reasonable set of numbers based on how likely they are to be played, and then I’d just play the same numbers every week. But that’s probably because I derive absolutely zero entertainment from the lotto and I’m too mathematically anal to see the fun in picking ‘lucky’ numbers, since I know it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference.