The most popular method used by players for the selection
of lottery numbers is calendar dates such as birthdays or
anniversaries.
More than 65% of the tickets played in state lotteries have
numbers all marked under 31. By eliminating numbers above
31, two problems emerge.
First, there is a much greater chance of sharing the bootie
because such a high percentage of people, like yourself, play
this way. It is odd, Dale, to have only one winner when all
the numbers picked are under 31.
Second, track your state lottery draws and note how often
just the numbers 1-31 occur. Fortunately for you, I did the
homework by researching every draw of every game ever played
in California. Even to my surprise, a ticket limiting the
numbers between 1-31 appears, on average, only 3.5 times a
year (104 games per year-Wednesday and Saturday draws).
So for the above two reasons, Dale, I subjectively recommend
random numbers, in addition to waiting for the lottery to
get close to true odds.
For your second question, I list the staggering chance of
hitting the Illinois lottery (6 out of 54) below, plus additional
state lottery games, indexed in ascending order of difficulty.
6 out of 25 1 chance in 177,100
6 out of 30 1 chance in 593,775
6 out of 33 1 chance in 1,107,568
6 out of 36 1 chance in 1,947,792
6 out of 39 1 chance in 3,262,623
6 out of 40 1 chance in 3,838,380
6 out of 41 1 chance in 4,496,388
6 out of 42 1 chance in 5,245,786
6 out of 44 1 chance in 7,059,052
6 out of 46 1 chance in 9,366,819
6 out of 47 1 chance in 10,737,573
6 out of 48 1 chance in 12,271,512
6 out of 49 1 chance in 13,983,816
6 out of 50 1 chance in 15, 890,700
6 out of 51 1 chance in 18, 009,460
6 out of 54 1 chance in 25,827,165
Powerball (5 out of 45 + 1 out of 45) 1 chance in 55 million.
Taken from the sceptic www.sportsbetting.com
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