How to Win the Lottery

Strategy #1 = Play lotteries with lower jackpots and that have less players.

This increases your chances of winning the jackpot. Usually the higher the jackpot, the less likely it is you will win as you have more competition for the winning number.

Strategy #2 - Never buy a Quick Pick ticket.

Studies in various countries have shown that lottery tickets that you manually pick out yourself have a much greater chance of winning than the ones where you let the computers do the picking for you.

Strategy #3 - Play tickets that award additional money or prizes if a sequence of numbers is played, such as two pairs in a row.

Strategy #4 - If you are playing a lottery which requires that numbers be won in a particular sequence, you should always remember to “box” your selection meaning that the numbers that can win can be picked in any order.

Strategy #5 - Play lotteries that offer bonus wins for an extra number.

Examples of these are Mega Millions and Power Ball in the United States, along with Encore in the Lotto 649 in Canada.

Strategy #6 - Play the most tickets that you can, as this increases the odds that you will be holding a winning ticket.

Strategy #7 - Pool your money for playing the lottery with several other people.

An example would be the “office lottery pool”. This allows you to buy a lot more tickets than you normally would be able to on your own. Studies have shown that there really is power in numbers. The odds favor individuals who have joined a pool as winners rather than those who play solo tickets on their won.

Strategy #8 - Try a wheeling system.

Wheeling is a way for you to get maximum coverage of the numbers you play. Usually you can buy these systems in the form of online or printed charts. Quite simply, wheeling simply helps you span a greater number of numbers each time you play increasing your odds of winning. This maximizes your payoffs when playing the wheeled numbers on multiple tickets.

Wheeling is in essence once way of actually reducing the lottery corporation’s odds against you, as it allows you to play more than the standard set of numbers in one group. There are many different types of charts and wheeling systems available for sale on the Internet including ones developed for six, seven and ten number games.

Here is an example of wheel using 33 tickets that could be used to play a 6 number game.

Pick a group of nine numbers. Your win guarantee is 5 to 6 hits out of nine. This means that if you have 5 numbers out of the pool of 9 numbers at least one ticket will have 5 numbers.

Fill out your play tickets in the sequence shown for all 33 tickets. This will bring you the 33 tickets's Win guarantee of 5/6 in 9.

This means that if you have 5 numbers out of the pool of 9 numbers, at least on ticket will have 5 numbers.

01 ____ 02 ____ 03 ____ 04 ____ 05 ____ 06 ____ 07 ____ 08 ____ 09

01-02-03-04-05-07

01-02-03-04-06-08

01-02-03-04-08-09

01-02-03-05-06-09

01-02-03-05-07-08

01-02-03-06-07-08

01-02-03-07-08-09

01-02-04-05-06-08

01-02-04-05-08-09

01-02-04-06-07-09

01-02-04-06-08-09

01-02-04-07-08-09

01-02-05-06-07-09

01-03-04-05-06-07

01-03-04-05-06-09

01-03-04-05-07-08

01-03-04-05-07-09

01-03-05-06-07-09

01-03-05-06-08-09

01-04-05-06-07-08

01-05-06-07-08-09

02-03-04-05-06-09

02-03-04-05-07-08

02-03-04-06-07-08

02-03-04-06-07-09

02-03-05-06-07-09

02-03-05-06-08-09

02-04-05-06-07-09

02-04-06-07-08-09

02-05-06-07-08-09

03-04-05-06-08-09

03-04-05-07-08-09

03-05-06-07-08-09

Online you can also buy databases that show examples of winning wheels from previous lotteries.

Strategy #9 – Check sites on the Internet to see which numbers have paid off lately in your local lottery.

Then try to pick numbers that have not paid off lately. The theory is that at least some of them are due to turn up in the next random pick. Keep in mind that these numbers should be mixed with other numbers, as the odds are quite low that all of the winning numbers would not have been in a winning combination for a recent game.

Strategy #10 – If you are not sure which numbers have paid off lately or what are the numbers that are most likely to pay off in a future lottery, there are also many sites on the internet that have done your homework for you, predicting through mathematical odds which numbers are most likely to come up.

To do a search for these numbers, try typing in “hot lottery numbers” and then the state or the lottery name in order to find the latest picks from the statistical experts.

Martin Willett has an interesting alternative perspective about how to win the lottery. You can also use a lottery number generator like the one at pick lottery numbers.