Power Ball / Mega Millions Strategy for Winning

[DickP]

As of January 15, 2012,[7] each basic Powerball play costs $2; with Power Play, $3. The minimum jackpot is $40 million. Any non-jackpot play matching the 5 white balls wins $1 million. There are 35 Powerballs, down from 39. [8] The drawings were moved from Universal Studios Orlando to the Florida Lottery’s high-tech studio in Tallahassee; Sam Arlen is the host. These changes were made to increase the frequency of nine-figure jackpots; a Powerball spokesperson believes a $500 million jackpot is feasable (the first rollover series under the current rules would have created a $415 million jackpot for February 15) and that the first $1 billion jackpot in US history would occur by 2022 under the current structure.[9]

$1 billion by 2022. I'd say $1 billion power ball drawing by next year

[Sully]

One last thing Sniper, et al., I remember when I was in high school, back when my mom used to play and I paid a lot of attention to the drawings, including helping her check the numbers as we watched the results.

What I remember starkly was the announcer saying, "Tonight's drawing is being audited by KPMG."

And, as a kid, I would think that's the company that's monitoring the drawing and making sure the lottery is not cheating. Then I took an accounting class and learned KPMG is one of the big four ACCOUNTING firms in the nation. Then I learned that auditing a lottery was simply doing the books, crunching the numbers on how much income the lottery is making from drawing to drawing, it had nothing to do with making sure it's legit.

Now, ask 10 people on the street if they know what KPMG is and I bet none of them know with any degree of certainty. Transpose that ignorance (for lack of a better term) to those who think the lottery is at all fair and insulated from being, potentially, the biggest ongoing scam in American history, something that makes Bernie Maddoff swindling billions look like childs play.

But, someone real does win the jackpot once in a while, they throw someone a bone, it could be you or me, and that's the one comparison I'll draw to Forex, you have to be in it to win it.

I'd hate to say it but you're right 99% of people who play the lottery have no idea that no one is watching.

[Luciferr]

That's interesting Sniper. When I go to AC, I enjoy playing Keno, not sure why I never play table games, I used to think it's because I was afraid to lose money and am risk averse to games that are weighted against me, but in reality I know I'll like it too much and never step away. Anyway, back to Keno, I've won a ton of money on it but without any real strategy. The last time I went down I paid for literally everything thanks to that game

I always wondered about that random number generator issue, but never for Keno, more so video poker. In essence, "random" can't be truly random for video poker either, or video blackjack, but I'm sure at least for those games the computer's bank of randomly generated outcomes will outlast the bank roll of any mortal man who is attempting to crack the code one hand at a time. But for Keno, it still perks my interest even though a relative lost his life savings playing it which is bizarre, because you say a guy in Vegas was able to.





Once and for all, and quite simply, the question is, will there be less jackpots thanks to millions of less tickets sold, or will the 4 less red balls increase the # of jackpots? I think its the former, less jackpots even with 4 less red ball numbers, it's now exactly the same as Mega Millions odds but costs double. And the only important question from Power Ball's point of view is, will profits increase or decrease with millions of less tickets sold? I think it's the former.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHkE7RN6vVY&feature=related"]The New $2 Powerball 2 - YouTube[/ame]

And the other important question is, will the billion dollars in advertising revenue put into making and airing videos like you see above actually fool people into playing at the levels they once did when it was $1 a ticket; I think they realize it will be an uphill battle but in a few years people will forget, it's America, we always do.

What if I did have enough money to bank roll someone to sit there and literally calculate all of the "random" outcomes? Wouldn't the casino kick hijm out for writing down all of the results?

[DickP]

All this talk of the lotto has got me wanting to go buy a ticket or two for Friday's megas... its up to $140 I think.

Hey you never know right?

[Nursultan]

A website for you all

http://www.howtopicklotterynumbers.com/

[FXScannerDarkly]

A website for you all

http://www.howtopicklotterynumbers.com/

While I am ready to rebuke you for saying there is any chance of buying a system for lottery that claims they have a secret to winning, in this very instant I actually had a stroke of genius.

I know there is software that will pick hot and cold numbers for any lottery once you input the past winning numbers into the database.

But there's something else that has yet to be discussed in this matter, which has nothing to do with what numbers individually have a probability of being drawn, rather, concentrating on the various combinations of numbers that are likely to come out, the mode of numbers, meaning whether it is most likely that numbers that are far apart or closer together have a likelihood of success. For instance, the combination of 1-2-3-4-5 + Megaball we can all agree is next to impossible to be selected. But why is that exactly? Because the plain likelihood of 5 consecutive numbers being drawn in a bank of 59 numbers is a statistical impossibility.

That's the one extreme, the other extreme would be that numbers would be for instance 10-20-30-40-50, or whatever combination which would spread them out as evenly as possible.which would actually be 1-16-31-45-59 +/ 2 for each number. Even then, this is close to impossible since there is a far greater likelihood of a number nearer to another to be drawn instead of this other extreme of them being as far spread out as possible.

Much like anything in life, this lottery exists somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

This brings me to the point of it all, that picking the most probably combination of numbers is more important, or I should say at least the only part of picking numbers that you can have in your control.

Gravitating toward hot, cold numbers is foolish and will get you disappointed because this has no memory, it has no groove or real streaks, since its completely random, 100% random.

But honestly, what's not random is the "tightness" of the range of numbers selected. Quite often we will see a drawing like 5.29-30-41-52.

[LukeM]

Isn't the lottery like FOREX, don't change your numbers and always play the same? lol

[FXScannerDarkly]

To further delve into my last post.

I was interested to see how many times consecutive numbers were drawn in the winning combinations.

Just counting Mega Millions previous 25 draws.

Consecutive numbers drawn:
7 out of 25 times.


The last guy who won the mega millions was from California on vacation in New York, bought a ticket and is now $208 million richer. He bought a quick pick and it had the numbers 23 – 32 – 33 – 39 - 43 and Mega Ball 08.

So, even though the majority of drawings don't have consecutive numbers, many of them do, and I doubt most human beings that play the lottery and pick their own numbers are inclined to willingly choose consecutive numbers, its in our nature to spread them out. I'd go through all the past numbers but I have a life, lol, and this is not that important in the grand scheme since dying in a terrorist attack is more likely than winning the lottery. (3000 Americans dying in terrorist attacks since 2001 as opposed to 200 winning the lottery since 2000).


Another thing I wanted to test was how many times the RED BALL matched a WHITE BALL, seeing as the odds for that in theory.
To my astonishment the Red Ball matched a White Ball only once.
So Matching Red Ball with a White Ball
1 out of 25 drawings.

[ACE]

I'm pretty convinced that MegaMillions is rigged, and power ball is rigged too.

It's just impossible for these jackpots to be getting so high without an "intervention" by these lottos making sure the winning numbers that do come out won't match any numbers their players have picked.

It's the easiest thing in the world for their computers to KNOW what combinations that weren't selected. And when there's only 50,000,000 tickets sold each drawing in a pool of 158,000,000, that's 2 out of 3--- meaning every 3 or 4 drawings there should be a winner.

There's been like, 9 or 10 drawings now where no one's won.

I played a few tickets these last drawings for the hell of it, but I'm not bitter, its like being mad you've never seen a UFO. In fact more people see a UFO each year than win the lottery.

[MartinLuthor]

A guy I used to know back in 2002 had a software that generated winning numbers for mega millions.

I can't find it with any of my searches in google, anyone hear of something like that?

[ACE]

A guy I used to know back in 2002 had a software that generated winning numbers for mega millions.

I can't find it with any of my searches in google, anyone hear of something like that?

A winning number generator?

You could search for a program that will determine the hot numbers and cold numbers based on the last whatever amount of drawings, but I wouldn't expect it to be too beneficial.

We're dealing with a completely random lottery, generating completely random outcomes, the next outcome has no real way to naturally know what numbers are past due or what numbers are hot and to generate those specific numbers.

But if you want to waste even more money buying the software in addition to wasting money playing the lottery itself, and wasting the time punching in the last 100 drawings, be my guest.

[Neagal]

I'm pretty convinced that MegaMillions is rigged, and power ball is rigged too.

It's just impossible for these jackpots to be getting so high without an "intervention" by these lottos making sure the winning numbers that do come out won't match any numbers their players have picked.

It's the easiest thing in the world for their computers to KNOW what combinations that weren't selected. And when there's only 50,000,000 tickets sold each drawing in a pool of 158,000,000, that's 2 out of 3--- meaning every 3 or 4 drawings there should be a winner.

There's been like, 9 or 10 drawings now where no one's won.

I played a few tickets these last drawings for the hell of it, but I'm not bitter, its like being mad you've never seen a UFO. In fact more people see a UFO each year than win the lottery.

I don't think I agree with you that mega millions is rigged, or power ball.

Just because the 50 million tickets sold doesn't hit the 160 million outcomes could easily lead to no one winning for 10+ drawings at a time.

Besides what benefit would mega millions or power ball have in letting the jackpots run so high, $500 million mega ball friday for instance???

Why risk the backlash?

[ACE]

Besides what benefit would mega millions or power ball have in letting the jackpots run so high, $500 million mega ball friday for instance???

Why risk the backlash?

Are you for real? What is the benefit? To the public I'd insist there shouldn't be a difference if you are going to win $40 million or $400 million... to someone making $40k a year, there should be no difference if you win the lottery what the amount should be, in the end you are richer than you'd ever be before.

Coming from someone with a JFK avatar, I think its funny that you idolize a government conspiracy that asked themselves the same thing, why risk the backlash in shooting Kennedy. They risked the back lash because they created so much doubt in the minds of the public they were sure they'd never get caught, even if they thought something stank about the death of JFK.

Not exactly the same thing but the lottery (a government organization) is putting billions of dollars each year out there for "real people to win" and you think they're not going to exert a little bit of control over it when it means making $10 million each drawing or $50 million. The point being when the jackpot goes from $40 to $50 million... the states only make $5-8 million in one day. When the jackpot goes from $363 million to $500 million, they probably made $75-100 million in one day.

I see the lottery as just another tax on the American people, its just we all willfully buy tickets and willfully pay this tax. Hell, even their own websites say they are mandated to use the money on schools, and public works programs. Isn't that exactly where our tax money goes too?

Rigging the lottery would be easy as hell, and only a few people would have to know about it if that many, a few people that have more to lose by exposing it than keeping their mouths shut; besides their consciences shouldn't be too confounded by rigging the lottery, its not like anyone is dying as a result of the deceit. So is making $100 million in one day (multiple times each year) worth the backlash compounded with the way they do it not arousing any suspicion? If I were in charge of mega millions, the answer is yes.

[ACE]

Yea the last guy on the tv that won went into how he had 10 quick picks and he won. I think it's mainly because 9/10 people choose quick picks rather than take the time to fill out their own numbers on the cards. So, it kinda reminds me of the whole marijuana is a gateway drug sham, well, when marijuana is the most easily obtainable "drug" in the world chances are 9/10 people that do hardcore drugs at some point most likely did marijuana at some point in their past. Does that make marijuana a natural conduit for someone to start doing crank, we both know that's not the truth its just the odds.

I think you're absolutely right except equating it with the war on drugs propaganda is a stretch.

You're right about the quick pick winning most of the time because the computer picks numbers that people just wouldn't pick otherwise, and playing devil's advocate and the lottery isn't rigged, the winning numbers are often strange combinations that I for one would never have thought to pick.

I think the mega millions winning numbers last week was like, 06 · 17 · 19 · 20 · 21.... who the hell would pick those numbers, lol?

[ACE]

It was someone from Rhode Island, what a sham, 50,000,000 Americans lose, yet again!

This goes to show it's a rigged game. Rhode Island is the least populous state in the Union.

And someone from Rhode Island won the huge $400 million jackpot last month and then the very next big winner for $70 million was also from Rhode Island.

Give me a break... with 50,000,000 million tickets sold each drawing I'd venture to say 250,000 or less are from Rhode Island.

And that tiny population wins twice in a row?

[ACE]

I know its the lottery, anything can happen, but what are the odds of the same number coming out three times in a row, 1 number out of 46, three times in a row. Very peculiar, a peculiarity that only benefited the lottery itself in that less and less players would bet on 36 being the red ball twice in a row, let alone three times in a row.

I remember that too.

The answer is nearly impossible.

If its 1 in 46 for the red ball to come up 36.

That means the total of 126 possible outcomes over the three drawings, and each time 36 comes out?

I'm trying to think of a good analogy to make people see this is nearly impossible for the red ball to be the same three drawings in a row but nothing comes to mind since the lottery is very unique. I thought of saying imagine there's a 1 in 46 chance a meteor will hit earth, what are the odds of 3 meteors hitting earth. But that doesn't take into account that since the rules are a red ball must be picked each drawing, it would mean a meteor would have to hit earth, just not the 36th meteor each time, and if the 36th meteor hit once, it can't resurrect itself and hit earth again.

What is the benefit of making sure 36 was the red ball 3 times in a row.

Drawing 1, 36 is the red ball.

After drawing 1, thousands if not millions of players that choose their own numbers will not select 36 for the red ball, thinking what are the odds of it coming out twice in a row.

After drawing 2, millions more people will not choose 36 for the red ball thinking what are the odds it will come out again?

The benefit is millions of extra dollars in not having to pay millions of people $2 or more for selecting 36 correctly as the red ball.



It's ingenious but I'm onto them after this kind of crap. Mega Millions is Rigged I tell you! Rigged!

[LottoAdvisor]

OVER DUE NUMBERS FOR MEGAMILLIONS LOTTO

Hot White Balls: 34, 8, 14, 7, 55, 41, 15, 13, 37, 26

Hot Mega Ball: 32 - 25 - 12 - 02

Hot Numbers for Megamillions Lottery

Cold White Balls: 48, 51, 29, 45, 03, 10, 09, 49, 06, 24

Cold Red Balls: 19 - 27 - 36 - 45

*Based on the last 100 drawings.

[Dannyfx]

God not this discussion again!!!

Mega Millions is PURE LUCK!!!!

Power Ball is Pure Luck!!!

No skill, no odds, totally random struck by lightning odds!!!

[FXScannerDarkly]

God not this discussion again!!!

Mega Millions is PURE LUCK!!!!

Power Ball is Pure Luck!!!

No skill, no odds, totally random struck by lightning odds!!!

That's not entirely accurate, it's pure luck in the sense that choosing the correct combination is nearly impossible if you don't have the money enough to cover the spread of possible outcomes.

Which makes me wonder, since the jackpot is $540,000,000, buying a ticket for each possible combination is $178,000,000. Someone super rich could theoretically buy each ticket and more than double their money, safe bet.

But, that's none of us here so forgetting that, there are "odds" in the sense what I just said a few days ago. I asked why do most jackpot winners win with a quick pick ticket, and I theorized it's because the computer will usually pick a number that a human being never would. The last power ball winner had "consecutive numbers" in his ticket, or "white ball numbers together" in sequence like 3-19-30-31-45.

So I went back and checked the last 25 drawings and 7 of them had "numbers together" or "consecutive numbers" in the outcome.

7 out of 25 is 28%.

To humor myself I went back and checked to see the same phenomenon in the last 100 drawings of mega millions.

In the last 104 drawings specifically the amount of drawings which included consecutive numbers were a total of 30. So 30 out of 104 drawings is believe it or not almost exactly 28%.

That was shocking to extrapolate the amount of drawings and it actually was the same % of drawings including consecutive white balls. I can't say though, that every 3 drawings will have a consecutive number in the white balls, some times there's 3 drawings in a row that has it, some times there's 7 without a consecutive number.

But in terms of pure statistics, every 3.something drawings there is a consecutive number that a human being most likely would never think to pick, only the quick picks.

Then to answer your claim of it being pure luck and no odds. The likelihood of the numbers 1-2-3-4-5 coming out is nearly impossible as well, so NEVER pick it, or any 5 numbers together as the likelihood of those being drawn is nearly impossible.

Why does this matter? Well it should matter to anyone that takes this game of chance seriously, and someone that does want to cover the spread and buy 178,000,000 tickets could naturally eliminate many many outcomes that would probably never come out and save a small fortune chasing a bigger fortune.

And out of 104 drawings there was only 1 drawing that had 3 consecutive numbers together, 06 · 17 · 19 · 20 · 21 + 20 - so basically 1% of the time (less actually) will 3 numbers be drawn that are together, so don't even bother.

[pip]

So did anyone win? Glad for them...