Lotto Blog

Winning the Lottery

I received many emails about the last post Winning the Lottery - Before Your Very Eyes. It appears that many of you want to see what happens to your odds of winning the lottery jackpot after each number is drawn. So, I’ll start the last post over, but this time I’ll carry it through to the last number drawn.

As I pointed out in the last post, as each number is drawn, the fortunes of millions of lottery ticket holders are changing before your very eyes. Let’s look at what is happening as the drawing proceeds. I’ll continue using the Lotto Texas 6/54 lottery in this example.

The first number is drawn from a pool of 54 numbers. Now, there are only 53 numbers left in the machine. So, the second number is drawn from a pool of 53 numbers, and so on. As I already pointed out, if someone buys 1 ticket, their odds of winning the jackpot are 1:25,827,165.

Now, if the first number drawn is a number on your ticket, you’re in a whole new ballgame. Your odds of winning the lottery jackpot just improved dramatically. In order to win the jackpot, you now need to get 5 correct numbers out of 53. The odds of this happening are 1:2,869,685. That’s 9 times better than your odds were just seconds before the first number was drawn.

This is where I left off in the last post. So, what happens next? If the second number drawn is also on your ticket, your odds of winning the lottery jackpot just got better again. Now you need to get 4 correct numbers out of 52. The odds of that happening is 1:270,725. That’s 10.6 times better than your odds were before that number was drawn.  Here’s a table that shows how your odds of winning the lottery jackpot change as the drawing proceeds.

Correct Numbers Drawn      Odds of Winning the Lottery Jackpot

• 0                                       1:25,827,165
• 1                                         1:2,869,685
• 2                                            1:270,725
• 3                                              1:20,825
• 4                                                1:1,225
• 5                                                     1:49
• 6                             Remember me in your will

Can you even imagine the excitement and tension in the room when your ticket has 5 winning numbers and you’re waiting for the last ball to pop up? One chance in 49, baby!!!

Tags: General, Lottery Software, Winning the Lottery by Professor Dolph
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Lottery Strategies

Welcome back everyone. I hope that all of you are well rested (or have recuperated) after the Christmas season. It feels good to be back and posting again. The other day, I received a comment on a post I made back on September 1, 2008,  Lottery Strategies #1- Play Your Own Game . At first, I was just going to return the comment but, instead, I’ve decided to make it my first post for 2009.

First of all, thanks to Ron for taking the time to comment. I enjoy feedback from Serious Lottery Players; it gets my juices flowing and forces me to look at playing the lottery from different vantage points. So, to start off the new year, hats off to Ron. You might want to go back to the post to pick up the thread before reading further.

If there is are 25,827,165 wagers in a big pile and you select one (6/54 lottery), your odds of that ticket being the jackpot winner are 1:25,827,165. The act of reaching in and picking a ticket didn’t improve those odds one bit.

Now, suppose that you go through the pile and remove any wager that has the number 17 in it. After a lot of work, you have created a subset of the 6/54 lottery.  That subset contains 22,957,480 wagers in it.  Next, you select one ticket from this subset and, as long as the number 17 is not one of the winning numbers, your odds of that ticket being the jackpot winner have improved to 1:22,957,480.

Here’s another way of looking at it. You have a small pile of tickets and a large pile of tickets. All of the tickets in the small pile are also duplicated in the large pile. So, if the winning ticket is in the smaller pile, it will also be in the larger pile. Therefore, if the winning ticket is in the smaller pile, your chances of winning are better by selecting a ticket out of the smaller pile. By the way, you will be correct in choosing the smaller pile over 90% of the time.

Obviously, the act of picking a ticket out of a pile doesn’t Improve Your Chances of winning, but which pile you pick from can.

Tags: Improve Your Chances, Lottery Strategies by Professor Dolph
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