It’s an age-old question – is there a system for playing the lottery? Everybody wants to win the massive jackpots on offer from various lotteries across the world, but the chances of it happening remain extremely slim. If there was a perfect formula, then everyone would be using it and thus there would be no enormous prize for the lucky winner because everyone would be sharing the jackpot.
But there just may be ways to improve your chances by using a particular strategy. Here we take a look at some of the options.
According to Lottoland, there are a number of strategies for winning the lottery, some of which are pretty weird. The strange options that the online lottery betting website mentioned include the suggestion that hopeful lottery winners should move to Carlow, or even get their cat to choose the numbers. The reason for this is that County Carlow is considered to be the luckiest place in Ireland, and is also responsible for the largest ever Irish Lotto jackpot of 115.4 million Euros in 2005. And with regards to the cat thing, one lottery winner from Cheshire in England had his chicken select his numbers by pecking his calculator, and another couple’s winning ticket was found by their dog.
There are some more logical ways to improve your chances, though, without having to turn to animals or move to a different county (or country!). One way is to not play multiple lotteries, but buy a greater number of tickets for a particular draw. To stop this strategy from milking your funds each week, you could get into a syndicate with people from work or friends. Syndicates have won the big money before, with “The Three Amigos” winning the largest amount of any group when they claimed the Mega Millions jackpot of $656 million in 2012.
Another option is to select lotteries that offer the best odds. Thanks to the internet and lottery betting sites, players aren’t restricted to sticking to their own country’s lottery anymore. Going for a lottery with a smaller jackpot usually gives the best odds, and for that reason a lot of people play the Irish Lotto. Other good options are the Saturday Lotto in Australia, the 6 aus 45 in Austria, the Polish Mini Lotto, and the Swedish Lotto.
If you want to minimise your chances of having to split a jackpot, it’s best to pick your own numbers rather than go for a lucky dip. It’s estimated that around 10,000 people in the UK choose the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 every week, so if those numbers came in then the jackpot would have to be split by that many winners. This would drastically reduce the prize that each player receives. Therefore, picking higher numbers is generally considered to be a much better option. For those that want to claim even higher jackpots, instead of buying a physical ticket, it is worthwhile using a lottery betting site where you can choose to go for double jackpots by paying more for the ticket.
At the end of the day, the lottery is a game of luck. But if you incorporate some of these tips you may be able to give yourself a slightly better chance. If all else fails, move to Ireland.