winning

How to Win the Lottery: It’s a Science

January 7, 2016 By Amanda Blankenship 14 Comments

Everyone has dreamt about what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. With lottery numbers reaching record highs, it is a popular topic. However, is there really a “smart” way to play the Power Ball? Is it just a waste of money? Should you be picking your own numbers or let the computer pick them? There is a “science” to winning the Power Ball. Here’s a few tips.

You Have to Play to Win, But…

Obviously, you can’t win the Power Ball without playing, however, spending money on it every week (many people do) isn’t always the best way to raise your chances at winning. The chance of hitting the lottery is low, but as the jackpot grows larger, more people play, and there is higher chance of a winner being declared.

Let the Computer Pick the Numbers

Many people like to play “special” numbers like birthdays, anniversaries and even lucky numbers. However, this isn’t always helpful. Most jackpot winners (70 percent of winners) have allowed the computer to pick their numbers for them. Does this mean you’re more likely to win with automated numbers? Possibly. There is a loophole though.

If you play the lottery regularly and have set numbers that you usually play, stick to those set of numbers. However, if you play those numbers all the time, you should stick to the same numbers (in the same combination). Doing this heightens your chance of winning. “Never ever, ever change those numbers,” said Richard Lustig, a lottery expert. Lustig has won seven lottery grand prizes in his lifetime, so you could say he has a few theories where the lottery is concerned.

When it comes to people who only play the lottery every once and a while (when the jackpot is large), there is less of a science to it. Lustig simply said, “Buy as many tickets as you can afford.”

Is There a Science to ‘Luck?’

If you pick your own numbers, you may want to include the numbers 8, 54, 14, 39 and 13. Past winning Power Ball tickets have included these numbers pretty frequently. There also seems to be lucky places to buy the tickets. Sixteen of the previous winners bought their tickets in Pennsylvania.

The odds of winning, of course, are slim either way. Those who buy a ticket have a 1 in 292,201,338 shot of winning the grand prize. Your chances of winning a seven-figure (a million or more) payout are a little bit better: 1 in 11,688,053.

Is it Worth It?

The question as to whether the Power Ball is worth it or not is really dependent on a few factors. Do you have “extra money” to play? Would that money be better off spent elsewhere? Is gambling something you do for fun (the Power Ball once a week is how any people get their gambling fix)? Are you going into debt (or going broke) playing the lottery? Your answers to these questions can determine whether you should play or not.

Either way, everyone can still dream of what they would do if they won the big money. Even though the chances aren’t very high, and sometimes it is a complete waste of time (and money), the Power Ball can be exciting. Just think – what would you do with the winnings?

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Four Easy Strategies for Winning the Lottery

October 25, 2015 By Alexa Mason 3 Comments

There are a number of occurrences that are more likely to happen than winning the lottery. These include being killed by a vending machine, plane crash, flesh-eating bacteria or being caught in a terrorist attack. On a more positive note, it’s also more likely that you’ll become a move star or an astronaut or discover that your child is a genius. Winning the lottery just doesn’t happen very often.

Regardless, we’ve scoured the Internet for some tips and techniques to increase the odds that you’ll win the lottery–we hope.

1. Decide on Quick Picks vs. Self-Picks

Seven-time lottery winner Richard Lustig recommends that players avoid the “lazy way” of choosing numbers by buying the quick-picks. Indeed, more people have won the Powerball with quick picks; however, more people also use quick picks. Furthermore, the odds that any given combination of numbers is picked is the same regarding of whether you use a quick-pick or you self-pick.

In addition to not relying on the machine, Lustig says to follow three other rules:

Research and see if your numbers have won before.
Select your ten sets of numbers and keep those if you continue buying tickets.
Buy as many tickets as you can afford, but not more than that.

2. Purchase more than one ticket

The more tickets you purchase, the more likely you will be to win the lottery. Simply by purchasing fifty tickets in the multi-state Powerball lottery, you odds go from 175,000,000 to 1 to a less inspiring (but greater) 175,000,000 to 50. In other words, the best strategy might be to purchase more tickets once a month rather than play each week, which increases the chances that you win without increasing your financial risk.

3. Purchase tickets with other people

So maybe you don’t want to buy fifty tickets, but if you gather a group of individuals together from your office or school, for example, you can even purchase many more than fifty tickets further increasing your odds. Of course you would have to share the prize if you won, but with large lottery payouts there is often plenty to go around.

4. Any information helps, right?

Though this might not directly help you the most frequently selected numbers in the Powerball are 29, 20, 33, and 2. Perhaps, it’s worth using some or all of these numbers.

Winning brings its own challenges

Taxes greatly reduce the profitability and sensibility of playing the lottery. So if you do play, try to minimize your tax burden. Even if you do win the lottery, you could be challenged in collecting. For example, Bloomberg.com is reporting that Illinois state budgets are so bad that the state is issuing IOUs to lottery players who win more than $600 dollars.

Finally, even if you do win, you still need to hold onto the cash. A lot of lottery players have trouble doing this. For example, winners Lara and Rogers Griffiths won $2.7 million and divorced years later amid mutual acrimony after a freak fire gutted the home they purchased with their winnings. Canadian Gerald Muswagon won $10 million, but later blew it on drinking and partying in just seven years. Muswagon later hung himself in his parent’s garage.

Try the slow and steady approach towards winning

The slow and steady approach to winning the lottery is – not playing at all. Ultimately, playing the lottery will never substitute for a sound financial plan built around prudently saving and investing over time. Sound financial planning usually gives you some basic financial education and saving and investing over time tends to hone your money management skills. So, if you want wealth, don’t rely on the lottery – instead focus on saving and investing.

For more on this topic read up on Raymond C. Buxton, a lottery winner who did it right and how to will the lottery when the jackpot reaches a billion.

Sometimes Quitting Equals Winning

May 13, 2013 By Jennifer Derrick 3 Comments

People like to refer to life as a game or a competition. The winners are the ones who accumulate the most or best things, achieve the most success, or get the most power. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway, which means that a large number of us are playing a game we’ll never win.

We’ll never have a lot of power, or enough money to buy anything we want. That’s not to say that we’re failures as human beings, but it’s realistic to assume that most of us will never be Trumps or Buffets. Yet we’re out there running and chasing the other people on the playing field with no hope of catching them and it’s killing a lot of us, both financially and emotionally. But what if this conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the real winners are the ones who have enough sense to break free by packing up their ball and bat to go home, kick back in front of the fire, and relax?

I’m not advocating giving up and becoming a couch potato for the rest of your life. Or moving to a hippie commune and opting out of mainstream existence. There’s a difference between throwing up your hands and saying, “I give up. I’ll never be successful or rich, so why bother trying,” and “You know what? Trying to beat everyone else is hurting me. I’m going to find another game that I can win,” and then going out and creating your own game with your own set of rules.

How does this work? Let’s say you’re chasing a promotion in a job you don’t like very much. But you’re chasing that promotion because it’s what’s expected of you, or you know you need the extra money to afford your inflated lifestyle. Conventional wisdom says you aggressively chase that promotion until you get it, and then you start chasing the next one. There are therapists and heartburn medication that can help you deal with the stress and the toll this is taking on your body and mind. You stay on this treadmill until you reach sixty-five and then you retire, spent and ill, to spend the rest of your life trying to work the knots out of your neck and gut. But you will have won the game! Question: Who wants to win this game? Not me, and not too many people who realistically look at their life and the consequences of playing this game.

The smart person, the real winner, is the one who says, “I don’t like this job and I don’t like what it’s doing to me. I’m going to find another job and I’m willing to do what I have to do to carve out a different life for myself.” Maybe they go back to school or go freelance. Maybe they drastically drop their standard of living so that they can live on a much lower paying, but more enjoyable, job. Maybe they retire early if they’ve got enough saved to make that work. Maybe they move in with family for a while, or take in some roommates to defray expenses while they figure things out. They take action to get where they want to go.

Or think of the person who keeps trying to keep up with the neighbors. The neighbors get a new kitchen, so does the game player. The neighbors get an Audi, the game player gets a Jaguar. The neighbors get a pool, the game player adds on a sunroom. The neighbors send the kids to private school and so does the game player. This is all well and good if you can afford all of this stuff and it’s what you want, but if you can’t, it’s a destructive game.

The winner says, “I don’t even like granite and stainless steel, and I like my older car. My kids are doing great in public school so why would I move them? I don’t care what my neighbors have. That’s their life, but I’m happy with mine the way it is.” The winner opts out of the possessions arms race and lives below their means with the amount and type of stuff that makes them content.

Winners don’t just keep racing to the same crappy finish line that gets further and further away no matter how hard they run. They find another finish line. And it doesn’t matter to them if they are the only ones running their race. They aren’t competing against anyone but themselves. They determine what constitutes success in their world. They don’t follow what society says. Society says you’re successful if you make $100,000 a year. The winner says, “I’m successful at $40,000 if I’m happy, have good family relationships, give something back to others, and have some fun in the bargain.” Society says you’re successful when you have the trappings of wealth or what celebrities have. Winners say, “I know what I can afford, what I need, and what I like and I stay within those three things. I don’t buy what others have just because they have it.”

Sometimes the winners in life aren’t the ones that you would expect. The winners are the ones who might seem unsuccessful in society’s eyes, but who know exactly who they are, what they need, what they enjoy, and what they can afford. They’re the ones who had enough sense to walk out on society’s game and go find or create a game they could win. It’s not a cop out to quit playing the game. Sometimes it’s the smartest, sanest thing you can do.

(Photo courtesy of kreg.steppe)