Improving the Odds
Improving the odds of winning a lottery game always involves buying more than one ticket, but there is more than one way of doing this, and simply throwing more money at the lottery isn’t the best approach. There is a slightly more methodical way of proceeding that, in my opinion, is well worth some serious consideration.
The approach I am referring to involves covering all of the numbers used in the lottery game you play with the least number of tickets. For example, if you play a 6 from 49 lottery such as the UK Lotto, you could cover all 49 numbers in nine lines, as follows:
01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06
07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36
37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
49, 00, 00, 00, 00, 00
There are two things you should not about this approach. The first is that you may be able to enter a few numbers twice if you have covered all lottery numbers before completing the final line (there are five blank positions marked 00 on Line 9 in the above example). The second is that you don’t need to cover numbers in order. You could mix numbers up as you wish (for example, your first line could be 01, 07, 13, 19, 25 and 31), as long as you don’t repeat any numbers until you have covered all of them once.
So what exactly is the advantage of doing this rather than simply playing nine Lucky Dip or Quick Pick lines? Well, the answer lies in the fact that as soon as the first number is drawn in the lottery, one of your tickets is guaranteed to have it. This means that your odds of matching the remaining five numbers on that ticket (still assuming a 6 from 49 lottery) are 1 in 1,712,304.
Playing in this way, you don’t have to worry about whether or not your numbers will come up because you know that they will. The only question is whether or not those numbers will line up together on one of your tickets. Although you will still need a hefty amount of luck to win the jackpot, you will obviously have several chances of landing a smaller win, and although the lowest prize tier may only cover your outlay, a second or third tier prize could be very profitable.
Article Last Updated: 29/05/2008 11:38:22
