Playing the Odds

Below, I have repeated the last paragraph from my last post, Lottery Strategies - Playing the Odds.

Let’s understand something here. We have no more idea of which numbers will be drawn in the next drawing than anyone else. The same is true in other forms of gambling like Poker or BlackJack. The player doesn’t know which card will be dealt next. But, he is observant and plays the odds. Does he win every hand? Of course not. But, over time, he does pretty well.

Skeptics, bless their hearts, are an interesting group. They refuse to believe a word I say but, undeterred, they seem to read every one of them, waiting for that one sentence (taken out of context) that they believe contradicts everything I’ve ever said or written about the lottery. Having been through this many times, I should have seen it coming. The second sentence in the above paragraph has caused skeptics to go into a frenzy not unlike the prepubescent mob scene witnessed at the latest Jonas Brothers concert.

But, just to demonstrate that I don’t bare them any ill will and don’t stick pins into a skeptic voodoo doll every night before retiring, I’ve published one of their comments under the last post, if you’d care to go back and read it. Not surprisingly, they have missed the point(s) I made in that post and many others.

Playing the Odds

Playing the odds is what everybody does in everything from Poker, BlackJack, Horse Racing, Dog Racing, Stock Market, Futures Market and in thousands of ways in business, industry and government everyday. They analyze history (data record) to find trends and patterns. All of these data records are considered to be a series of random events. Billions are spent doing this each year.

But, when I show lottery players that they can do the same thing, skeptics spit, sputter and roar that it can’t be done. The very next day the skeptics buy or sell some stock at the recommendation of their broker, read some government forecast in the Wall Street Journal and, that evening, go over to a friends house to play Texas holdem.  All the while, oblivious to their own duplicity.

Tags: Lottery Number Advisor, Lottery Predictions, Lottery Strategies by Professor Dolph
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Lottery Strategies

In the last post, Lottery Tips - Birthday Bias, I showed all of you that insist on using important dates as your lottery numbers, how to do it right; how to play the odds.  But, even if you’re a serious lottery player, like me, that doesn’t put a lot of stock in the lucky date strategy, you can benefit from knowledge gained from the graph below.  It’s the same graph that I used in the last post. I repeated it here for your convenience. I’m going to use the AZ539 lottery for this example.

Here’s the scenario. You’re a serious lottery player and use the 80% rule that I recommend to determine the size of your play list. The size of the Arizona lotto is 39 numbers, therefore, the play list should contain 31 numbers. You use the analysis power of LONA™ to help you create your play list. You’re confident in your analysis and decide to be more aggressive. Your play list contains 29 numbers.

Of course, many of the numbers in your play list will be between 1 and 31. They didn’t end up in your list because they are your wife’s birthday or your anniversary, but because of your diligent efforts in handicapping the AZ539 lottery.

You decide to place 100 wagers using the play list you created. Here’s your list.

1  2  3  4  7  9  10  11  13  14  15  16  17  19  21  22  24  25  26  27  28  29  31  32  33  35  37  38  39

Historically, 37% of the winning tickets are made up of numbers between 1 and 31.  Therefore, you use LONA™ to create 37 wagers from the numbers in your play list that fall between 1 and 31.

1  2  3  4  7  9  10  11  13  14  15  16  17  19  21  22  24  25  26  27  28  29  31

Next, you use LONA™ to create 63 wagers from the full 29 number list. You now have your 100 wagers for the next drawing. This is called playing the odds.

Let’s understand something here. We have no more idea of which numbers will be drawn in the next drawing than anyone else. The same is true in other forms of gambling like Poker or BlackJack. The player doesn’t know which card will be dealt next. But, he is observant and plays the odds. Does he win every hand? Of course not. But, over time, he does pretty well.

Tags: Lottery Number Advisor, Lottery Strategies, Lottery Tips by Professor Dolph
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Lottery Tips

In the last post, Lottery Tips - What’s Our Anniversary, Honey? , I showed you a graph of the percentage of date only lottery jackpots for all of the 5 number lotteries in the US and Canada.  A couple of you have asked what good is it? Well, as with any good Lottery Strategies, they are worth nothing if you don’t use them. So, the Best Lottery Advice for today is how to take advantage of the knowledge we gained from that graph.

First, I’m going to zoom in on the 35 to 40 sized lotteries. The new graph is shown below. Notice that I’ve added an average trend line. This line represents statistically the percentage of date type lottery jackpots that we should expect. If a lottery is above that line, then it is producing more date type winners than is expected. It is showing a bias in favor of date type winners. The two most prominent examples of bias favoring date type winners are the MA535 and the AZ539. The opposite is true for lotteries below the line. The two most prominent examples of negative bias to date type winners are the OK536 and the TX537.

The benefit here, to serious lottery players, is pretty obvious.  For example, if you are playing the AZ539 lottery, you should bias your wagers in favor of date type wagers.  How much bias? Make 37% of your wagers of the date type.  For example, if you buy 100 tickets, then make sure that 37 of them are of the date variety. For any other lotteries shown, find it’s percentage and use that.

What you are doing is playing the odds. This becomes an overall strategy that you apply every drawing over a period of time. This is not something you do for 1 drawing and cast it aside because it didn’t work. These types of Lottery Strategies are long term and consistency is the key.

Tags: Best Lottery Advice, Lottery Strategies, Lottery Tips by Professor Dolph
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Lottery Tips

In the last post, Lottery Tips - Happy Birthday , we talked about lottery players who use dates and anniversaries to pick their lottery numbers. This means that their wagers will only contain numbers between 1 and 31. This is fine for the Wisconsin 5/31 drawing but not so fine for the Rhode Island 5/35 lottery because 4 numbers, 32 thru 35, are never played. As the size of the lottery goes up, playing birthdays and anniversaries gets less and less attractive.

Now, I’ve known this for years but never seriously investigated it. But, something I said in the last post has been gnawing at me. To review, I said that for the NJ540 lottery, 23% of the winning jackpot numbers contained only numbers less than or equal to 31. A true statement. But, it was like that scab that you can’t stop picking at. I just couldn’t leave it alone.

What bothered me was the assumption that analyzing the NY559 and the NJ540 was adequate; sufficient. I hate it when others paint everything with a broad brush based upon a single example. So, I analyzed them all.  At least, all of the 5 number lotteries and put the results in a graph which is shown below.

Now I feel better. And, I learned something. Notice that for the 5/35 lotteries, 40% to 50% of the time you couldn’t win the jackpot by singing Happy Birthday. This occurred by adding only 4 more numbers to the game; 32 thru 35! So, for all you movie goers out there, in 20 to 25 weeks of lottery drawings out of every year, The Wedding Singer’s chances of Winning the Lottery jackpot were zero. That’s a pretty stiff price to pay.

Tags: Lottery Number Advisor, Lottery Tips, Winning the Lottery by Professor Dolph
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Lottery Tips

Lottery drawing after drawing, some lottery players create their wagers using family birthdays, anniversaries, the dates of famous events, etc.  Depending on the lottery they are playing this may or may not be a good strategy. So, here’s some good lottery advice.  I’ll use a couple of examples to make my point.

In Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota there is lottery game called the WildCard. It is a 5 out of 31 drawing. With this lottery (or any lottery with a size of 31), picking your numbers by using your anniversary or your wife’s birthday would be perfectly valid. But, if you’re playing the NY659 lottery, that strategy would be a big mistake. Why? Because over 47% of the numbers, from 32 thru 59, will never be used. On the average, almost half the numbers drawn will come from that group.  Therefore, you would have seriously limited your chances of winning the lottery jackpot by doing this. As an exclamation point on that statement, in the last 200 drawings of the NY659 there was only one jackpot winning ticket in which all the numbers were 31 or less. That’s 0.5% .

Now, as the size of the lottery goes down to, 54, 49, 47, 44, 40, etc. , the amount of negative impact is lessened. For example, in the last 740 drawings of the NJ540 lottery, 23% of the winning jackpot numbers contained only numbers less than or equal to 31. Not bad, you say. Well, that’s one way of looking at it.  But, in 77% of the drawings you didn’t even have a chance to win the lottery jackpot. You’re strategy took you out of the running.

Regardless of what I say, many people will continue with this approach. I wish them well. I really do. I hope they win the big one. But, what I am about, what this Lotto Blog is about, what all of my articles are about and what LONA™ is about is to Improve Your Chances of Winning the Lottery jackpot in as many drawings as possible. Each drawing is an opportunity and life is too short to let even one go by.

Tags: Best Lottery Advice, Improve Your Chances, Lottery Tips, Winning the Lottery by Professor Dolph
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