Playing the NC Lottery

[PhillyB]

i have played the lottery once in my life, and that was a year or so ago when the powerball hit a record $600M or something similarly obscene... my buddy and i dropped a couple bucks on some tickets just for the hell of it. that's the only time i've bothered; in general i view it as a waste of money, a tax on the poor.

 

for the past year i've had this guy at my bar that pops in occasionally, maybe once every three months, and every time i give him a water or a coffee and he flips me a dollar coin. for whatever reason i never cashed them; i've got a handful of them sitting on my shelf.

 

today i decided to buy lottery tickets with them when i get them. give me your advice, all of it.

 

 

 

TL;DR version: what are your strategies for playing the lottery?

[Hawk]

quick picks whenever the jackpots get bigger

[Kurb]

Buy ticket

Lose

Buy Ticket

Lose
Infinity

Win

[pstall]

Choose only prime #'s on odd numbered days. Pay me in bourbon and a surf trip to Costa Rica.

[Happy Panther]

i have played the lottery once in my life, and that was a year or so ago when the powerball hit a record $600M or something similarly obscene... my buddy and i dropped a couple bucks on some tickets just for the hell of it. that's the only time i've bothered; in general i view it as a waste of money, a tax on the poor.

 

for the past year i've had this guy at my bar that pops in occasionally, maybe once every three months, and every time i give him a water or a coffee and he flips me a dollar coin. for whatever reason i never cashed them; i've got a handful of them sitting on my shelf.

 

today i decided to buy lottery tickets with them when i get them. give me your advice, all of it.

 

 

 

TL;DR version: what are your strategies for playing the lottery?

 

There is no such thing as a lottery strategy except not to play.

 

But I always throw $20 at it when the pot gets big.

[Davidson Deac II]

I played the lottery once when I was stationed in Virginia back in the mid 90's.  Haven't bought a ticket since.  If I throw dollars away, I would prefer it to be down some stripper's thong.  :)

 

There use to be several stores right across the Virginia state line near Mount Airy that made a fortune from NC residents coming up to play the lottery.  Now all but 1 of them has gone out of business. 

[CarolinaKid704]

I've made some good picks over the past month. I have a good sampling of the past 2 years and even though its luck there are some tendencies. I just switched my powerball number over to 34. It was 13 and I made $24 off that. For the five white ball numbers just make sure their within a certain range of each other. 25 is a good range so example 2 20 21 24 27. That way when your powerball hits you have a range where hopefully 2 or 3 white balls hit with it. November was my best month and my numbers were scary good, didn't miss by much.

[Jase]

as someone who is good at math, I can recognize the astronomical odds.

 

I also recognize that the only way to improve your odds is to buy lots of numbers for one drawing.

 

i.e. your odds are better if you buy 50 numbers for one drawing per year rather than buying one set of numbers every week.

 

For this reason, we play very rarely, but buy loads of numbers.

[Happy Panther]

 For the five white ball numbers just make sure their within a certain range of each other. 25 is a good range so example 2 20 21 24 27. That way when your powerball hits you have a range where hopefully 2 or 3 white balls hit with it. 

 

Come on...

[Happy Panther]

i.e. your odds are better if you buy 50 numbers for one drawing per year rather than buying one set of numbers every week.

 

Come on...

[Jase]

Come on...

 

um, it's true, although for such low odds, it doesn't make a huge difference.

 

Let's say there were only 10 sets of number combinations for simplicity sake.

 

 

If you draw 4 sets of numbers once, your odds of drawing the winning set of numbers are 4/10, or 40% for that one drawing.

 

 

Let's say, in another scenario, you draw 1 set of numbers, 4 times, all independently events.

 

For this scenario, you have 3 options: not winning, winning once, and winning more than once.

 

To figure out the odds of winning at least once, you need to figure out the odds of not winning at all.  This will be the product of not winning in each instance.

 

ie P(1st attempt) * P(2nd attempt) * P(3rd attempt) * P(4th attempt)

 

(0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9)= 65.6% chance of not drawing the winning number combination in 4 tries.

 

This puts the chance drawing the winning numbers at least once at 34.4% in 4 attempts.

 

Vs a 40% chance of winning if you drew the 4 numbers all at once.

[Panthro]

I <3 Jase

[Jase]

just for shits and giggles, if the odds are 1:180,000,000 (simplified, I know)

 

draw 1000 independent sets of numbers: 0.000005554983% chance of winning: 180,019:1 odds

 

draw 1000 sets numbers at once: 0.000005555555% chance of winning: 180,000:1 odds

 

So you're saying there's a chance...

 

 

 

 

The improvement in odds is much better for the lower prizes, though.

[CarolinaKid704]

Come on...

 

Get...Over...It.