Because you might just as well be feeding your money into a slot machine.

The best you can ever hope for with most Pick 3 games is a fairly small win.

And that’s the big prize!

But those lower tier prizes arrive regular enough to keep you playing… after all, you won again this week right..?

What happens to those small wins? They’re so small, they just go back in the machine.

You Never Really Win With Pick 3

But you never win big, because there simply is no big with the Pick 3 lottery.

Sure, you can play Pick 3 just for fun. But if you’re playing for the jackpot, then you’re playing the wrong game.

For most players, one of the main reasons to play the lottery is the chance of that ‘big win’. The life changing jackpot.

Pick 3 type games can never give you that.

So What Can You Do?

The real way to win the Pick 3 lottery, is to stop playing it and choose a better game.

[They won't advise you to do that at the lottery counter of course, or in those trashy Pick 3 lottery systems either]

But take your typical Pick 5 or 6 game. Not only do they have life changing jackpots pretty much every week. These games also have plenty of those smaller prizes too.

Now the odds are going to be tougher than they are with Pick 3 for similar smaller prizes, but they won’t be radically different.

But what you really gain is the chance of winning the bigger prizes too – at no extra cost.

The Right Game Can Make The Difference Between Winning & Losing

Wisely choosing the right game to play (for you) is the most important step any lottery player can take.

So how do you choose a better game to play?

Get my free lottery tips – and I’ll show you how exactly how, and take you through specific examples.

Don’t just play what looks the shiniest, or has the biggest jackpot when you reach the lottery terminal. Because that doesn’t make it the best game for you.

Related posts:

1. Which Lottery Has The Best Odds Of Winning?
2. Lottery Advice – What’s Your Game?
3. Which UK Lotto Game Has The Best Chances Of Winning?

The lottery is a tax on the stupid…

Or my personal favourite… the lottery is a tax on the mathematically challenged.

Gosh, that’s so desperately witty.

This phrase has been abused by dull, smug people for years. Sadly, they think nobody will notice that they didn’t actually come up with the phrase.

If only there was a tax on the comically challenged.

For one, I don’t believe for a second that these witty geniuses have never played the lottery themselves. Or other games of chance.

Furthermore, nobody buys a lottery ticket as an investment. We don’t expect it to be worth millions.

Yes, we hope we will win. We dream that we will hit the jackpot.

But we all know it’s very unlikely to happen. But the fact is, it could.

And that’s what we’re buying.

Firstly, we’re buying a little dream time. What would we do with that jackpot money – what would we buy, where would we live, what car would we drive, how would we help out our family and friends.

Secondly, it’s entertainment!

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that, actually, I quite enjoy playing the lottery. Whether I play in a lottery syndicate, or I buy a quick pick ticket at my local shop. It’s fun.

Some big winners carry on buying lottery tickets. They must be really stupid then, right? Or, could it be because they just enjoy playing too..?

And for a pound, a dollar or a euro – that’s some very cheap entertainment.

I’ve spent a lot more than that renting movies that entertained me a lot less.

Some players probably don’t fully understand the odds. But does that really make them foolish?

Is it foolish to have a little fun, enjoy a little ‘what if’ dreaming with your friends or work colleagues?

For less than half the price of a cappucino?

I think not.

And what of the winners dear dull witted lottery basher?

I’d love to put one of you in a room full of lottery winners. You know, a whole bunch of those stupid mathematically challenged people. The ones who dared to dream a little, and found their little dream became a great big wonderful reality.

It’s actually quite hard to take offense when someone calls you ‘stupid’ for risking a bit of pocket change. Particularly when you’ve already become one of the tens of thousands of overnight millionaires created by lottery games.

Yes, it would have been far more sensible to put that money in the bank. And enjoy the benefits of compound interest that would see it double to cover the price of a whole cappucino in around 20 years…

And maybe we could do that with all the other money we waste on having a bit of fun and enjoying life.

Or maybe, just maybe, we could live a little instead.

There is one aspect of the maths that every lottery player clearly understands however.

The chances of winning a jackpot may be remote, but not buying a ticket makes them precisely zero.

Good luck in the next draw.

P.S. Hit the Like button below if you agree that playing the lottery is not stupid!

Related posts:

1. Anti Online Gambling Law Challenged
2. El Gordo Draw – Kinda Freaky

Along with simply ‘which lottery is the best?’ (to which my tongue in cheek answer is… ‘the lottery that just paid you the jackpot.’)

The Best Odds Of Winning

But it is a serious question, because the odds of the game are the number one factor that determine if you win or lose.

The lottery with the best odds is usually the one with the fewest balls drawn. So a pick 3 game is of course easier to win than a pick 4 game. Which is why the pick 3 prizes are much smaller.

Prize Matters

This is the hidden half of this question.

Because, yes you really want the game with the best odds. But you also want the jackpot to be big enough to get you excited. And the key is how you balance the two.

Yes, it’s great to win the pick 3 jackpot – but if winning that money won’t change your life at all, then you’re not playing the right game.

Compare Lottery Games

To compare lottery games well you need to understand the odds, and have an idea of how big a win would change your life. To make this super easy, use my tool to help you compare lottery odds.

Then you can pick which lottery game has the best odds for you.

Related posts:

1. Which UK Lotto Game Has The Best Chances Of Winning?
2. Does Buying More Tickets Change The Odds Of Winning The Lottery?
3. Chances of Winning Mega Millions?

I get asked this type of question quite often.

Surprisingly the answer depends on you.

The UK has various lottery games, from Hot Picks to Thunderball. All with different odds, all with different prize divisions and amounts. Some with very different methods of play. So it’s certainly confusing!

All lottery games balance the odds against size of the jackpot, i.e. bigger jackpot = harder to win. So the answer really depends on how big a prize you want to win.

Here’s Why…

Ignoring Hot Picks for just a moment.

Daily Play actually gives you the best odds of winning ANY prize (at 1 in 7.4), and the best odds of winning the top prize (1 in 888,030).

But of course that top prize is much smaller than the other games at just £30,000 – bigger jackpots are harder to win, right?

Hot Picks confuses this slightly too as you have to specifically choose which prize level you want to play for, Match 1, Match 2 etc. Most of the prizes are too small to bother (you may as well just play a slot machine!). But…

• Pick 4 odds are 1 in 14,126 for a £7,000 prize
• Pick 5 odds are 1 in 317,814 for a £130,000 prize

So both are actually easier to win the big prize than Daily Play. But remember with Hot Picks there are NO other prizes for matching less balls.

So while Pick 5 is nearly 3 times easier to win the big prize than Daily Play, and the prize is more than 4 times bigger – it’s Match all 5 or you get nothing at all.

So What Can You Do..?

All of which means – choose the game with the best odds, that offers a jackpot that’s big enough for YOU. Don’t simply go for the game with the biggest jackpot.

To help you figure out which game gives you the best chances of winning use my new lottery compare tool.

And, get in touch if you have any questions about the lottery.

Related posts:

1. Are My Chances Of Winning Worse With Lottery Quick Picks?
2. Chances of Winning Mega Millions?
3. Are My Chances Of Winning Better If I Play Less Often..?

Glimmer Of Hope..?

To be fair this is the first glimmer of any sense from Xzotto. But I do just mean glimmer so don’t get excited yet folks. On the face of it you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a cool idea.

So What is Floating 5

Well the deal is you pay $30 to join, plus $25 per month – same as before. Plus $4 or $5 per month ticket costs as you have to buy tickets to be included in Floating 5.

Now if a Xzotto members ticket wins, they get to keep 50% of the prize (I know, but stay with me here…). Then 35% goes to the 7 people above them.

Finally three lots of 5% are randomly given to someone else. The 5% bits are Floating 5.

Somewhat Confusing, So Is That Good Then..?

Well, this now makes it a lottery within a lottery (still not a lottery pool!). So if someone else wins, now you play another lottery to see if you win any of their prize money.

So if (as I’m told) there are 3,000 members, that means if one of them wins, then you have a 3-in-3000 chance of getting 5% of their prize. Because there are 3 of those 5% bits and 3000 members who could be chosen. Which is the same as a 1-in-1000 chance.

Just a Bit More Mega Millions Maths…

Now normally the Mega Millions jackpot is odds of 1-in-175 million (so not a good game to choose anyway). And my calculator says that the chances of both a Xzotto Member hitting the jackpot AND you then getting a 5% share of it is therefore 1-in-60 Million.

Disappointed!

Which is actually the same increase in chances as buying 3 tickets yourself…

Except 3 tickets per draw would cost you half as much. And you’d get to keep all of the prize instead of just 5%…

[Now before some bright spark says "but as more members join the chances of one of them winning the lottery increases..." - maybe so, BUT the chances of you actually getting a 5% share get worse at the same time as there are more members it could go to! So overall it doesn't improve.]

Is Floating 5 the genius it claims to be? Does it revolutionise Xzotto and make it a superb lottery pool?

Answers on a postcard to:- Why Does Xzotto Still Suck, Xzotto, Cloud Cuckoo Land, USA.

Related posts:

1. Xzotto Sucks – Here’s Why…
2. Are My Chances Of Winning Worse With Lottery Quick Picks?

Mega Millions is different to ‘normal’ lottery draws. It’s a ‘power ball’ type draw which means it’s really 2 draws – and you have to win both to get the jackpot.

That’s normally a very bad thing for the player!

But if you want to know just how bad, here’s how you work out your actual chances of winning that big jackpot…

For Mega Millions, you have 5 numbers from 56, so let’s work out how many different possible results there are. And you do that like this:-

56 x 55 x 54 x 53 x 52 divided by 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1
= 3,819,816 possible combinations

The Mega Number Is The Killer…

You also have the ‘Mega’ number which is a separate draw of 1 number from 46. That doesn’t seem so bad, but it actually means there are 46 more ways those 3 million+ possible results from above can happen.

And that does something really nasty to your chances. Because to get the final result you multiply the two like this:-

3,819,816 x 46 = 175,711,536

And that means you only have a 1 in 175 million chance of winning the jackpot..!

It’s Tempting But You Can Do Better

The big jackpot attracts a lot of players. But that jackpot is so big only because it is so damn hard to win.

That’s by design!

The lottery company sell more tickets when the prize is big. But they only get really big prizes when nobody wins, so the jackpot can roll over again and again. And that only happens if the odds of winning are really tough.

And that’s why you only have a 1 in 175 million chance of winning that huge prize.

A Better Chance Of Winning…

Look at the odds for the other lottery games your State runs. Pick a game with a ‘big enough’ prize but better odds.

You can instantly get 5 or 10 times the chance of winning for the same money.

If you state doesn’t offer a game with a better chance, then check out these guys who run the Florida lottery pools. Play with them instead and amazingly your chances of winning are instantly 77 times better than the Mega Millions..!

Related posts:

1. Are My Chances Of Winning Better If I Play Less Often..?
2. Which UK Lotto Game Has The Best Chances Of Winning?
3. Are My Chances Of Winning Worse With Lottery Quick Picks?

Just today I came across another ‘system’ teaching people to predict lottery numbers by using ‘lottery sums’. What do they mean by using sums for the lottery?

In a nutshell the expert idiot writer meant adding up groups of past numbers, and making silly conclusions about them…

You sum (or ‘add’) the first two numbers, then the second and third groups of two numbers. Then you look at what range the sum totals fall into, and lo and behold based on the last 87 years results from the Albanian Mega-Super-De-Dooper Lotto… there is a pattern..!

Here’s why lottery sums are so dumb:-

1. If you apply completely made up calculations with no logic behind them to sets of numbers in a fixed range – there will always be patterns, because the numbers are in a fixed range!
2. It’s like looking at clouds and making faces, except cloud pictures are fun and not totally dumb…
3. Past results!? What the heck have past results got to do with it anyway. Are you really claiming that the little balls have a life of their own and remember what happened before?
4. Just because they try and use complicated sounding maths terms like ‘standard deviation’ does NOT make them clever or right!
5. It’s like saying ‘pick only numbers between x and y because 70% of the past results are in that range’ – yeah, great, that’s because 70%  of any possible result is in that range too! What about the other 30%!?

Of course this kind of dumb analysis makes absolutely no difference at all to your chances of winning. Thankfully it can’t make your chances any worse, but I guarantee it will NOT improve them either.

Hey, I just saw a cute little dog face in last nights lottery results…

Related posts:

1. Don’t Miss The EuroMillions Superdraw Jackpot This Friday…
2. $50 Million Australian Powerball Jackpot – Largest Ever!
3. NEWS: EuroMillions 3rd Biggest Jackpot Ever

Obviously nobody can pick winning numbers in advance, that’s fundamentally impossible. But what you should be doing is everything you can to maximise your chances of winning. And top of that list is one of the most frequently overlooked pieces of advice I can give you… play the right lottery game.

Now the right lottery game for you will depend on:-

• what country you live in
• what games are available
• AND what your goals are in terms of winning

Obviously we all want to win big, right? But what most people really want is ‘life changing’ big. To some people that may be as little as a few thousand pounds/dollars/Euros. To others it may be a lot more. But you need to know this otherwise you can’t make the best decision as to what game to play!

Once you know ‘how much’ will do it for you, then for every lottery game available to you find a) the typical jackpot amount, and b) the odds of winning (check your lottery companies official website for these details).

Now you can wisely pick the game that gives you the best chance of winning the life changing sum of money you’re aiming for. Why play a game with jackpot odds of 1-in-72 million if there is a game with odds of 1-in-5 million that would change your life if you actually did win it?

That little gem of lottery advice alone can instantly double your chances of winning – and maybe even give you up to TEN TIMES the chance. It will cost you nothing to apply it, and goes on working forever! Please add your comment below to let me know how much this improved your winning chances.

If you liked this tip, please use the ‘Share This’ link below to help other people find it.

For more tips on maximising your winning chances, make sure you get our free lottery tips course (oh, and do subcribe to our feed to make sure you get future gems of lottery advice).

Related posts:

1. Which UK Lotto Game Has The Best Chances Of Winning?
2. Play The Lottery Online?
3. Which Lottery Has The Best Odds Of Winning?

[If you want to know more about how Derren does his crazy mind voodoo check out this video]

I did but then I’m used to spotting such things as the same trick is used by lottery system sellers.

What Derren did was take a woman at random and feed her horse racing predictions. She was aware that she was part of an experiment, and that ‘The System’ was supposed to be a way to guarantee picking winners every time at horse racing.

For the first race she was given a winner and told to just watch the race. Once the predicted winner rode home her confidence was visibly boosted. The next race her own money was at risk. To her great excitement, she won again. A third and fourth time turned her into a firm believer that The System was real, and completely proven. After all, four winners out of four races, what are the chances of that?

Derren Brown – The System Explained

For the fifth race, our lucky winner got to meet the creator of The System. And here’s where Derren revealed to her how it all worked. No, he wasn’t psychic or the discoverer of some mathematical miracle. Neither was he plain lucky or working with secret stable insider information. It was simply a con. A well carried out con.

Her perception was that The System worked because she won every race. But this was only her perception, and that of the viewer with the information revealed so far.

The reality however was very different. Because she was not the only person in the experiment. In fact, thousands of people all believed they were the only one!

Derren had simply covered every possible outcome. The thousands of people who had been allocated the losing horses in race one were simply thrown out with apologies, while all those given the horse that won moved on to race 2. Then Derren simply split them down again between all the horses running, and again only kept those that it turned out had been given the horse that won.

Repeated over race three and four, there was just one very happy woman remaining – and thousands of not so happy people who knew The System did NOT work as promised.

So How Does This Relate To Lottery Systems?

It’s in the promise, and the perception of reality. The promise is that the lottery system can help you pick winning numbers. The perception is that it works – read those testimonials!

It’s quite possible those testimonials are entirely real, but the reality is they come from a very distorted perception. Because if you con enough people into using your lottery system then some are definitely going to win – not because your system works, but simply because you cover all the outcomes!

[NOTE ABOUT SYSTEMS: When I refer to 'lottery system', I mean a piece of software, book or website that claims to help you pick combinations of numbers that are more likely to win, be that through analysing past results or eliminating 'unlikely' results, i.e. misguided rubbish and lies. I don't mean multiple entries by wheeling numbers or using a lottery syndicate or pooled entries.]

Now the likely reality here is that system sellers don’t actually manage to con enough people to cover all the outcomes. But it doesn’t matter because they have this covered too – nobody is thrown out when they lose. All they have to do is say stick with it, the system does work, try again next week.

A lucky winner doesn’t ultimately care if they win a lot of money on week 1 or week 101, their perception is they won. The reality is they won due to random chance only, as the thousands of people who lost using the same system should realise.

So the next time you are promised lottery numbers that have a better chance of winning, think about what perception of reality you’re actually being sold.

And if you’d like to know more your chances of winning the lottery, and the facts about what you can do to increase your chances please get my free lottery tips.

So what did you think of Derren’s new one-off special? Did you guess early what was going on?

P.S. Want to know more Derren Brown secrets? And how he does those crazy mind voodoo tricks check out this video.

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown – How To Win The Lottery?
2. Derren Brown Lottery – How It Was Really Done
3. Derren Brown Lottery Explained

Yes and no!

Yes, any set of numbers can be repeated. Lottery balls have no memory, they don’t remember if they got drawn last week or any other week. That means they have just as much chance of being drawn this week.

In fact, last weeks winning numbers have exactly the same chance of being drawn this week.

Which is of course, exactly the same chance as any other set of number being drawn. And that’s why it “never” happens. Because there are millions of other combinations just as likely to come up, it’s much more likely winning numbers won’t come up again simply because there are a hell of a lot more of them.

Think of a dice. If you throw a 6, then roll again, are you now more or less likely to get a 6? The 6 is still there on the dice exactly the same as it was before. So of course, it still has the same 1 in 6 chance of being rolled. There is more chance of not rolling a 6, but only because there are 5 other numbers there. Just like before you rolled the 6 in the first place.

So yes, any set of numbers can be repeated. But no, they are no more likely to be drawn.

The danger again is in the myth and fake knowledge spread by ignorant people. Some people think winning numbers are more likely to be drawn again, so they pick numbers that have won the jackpot before – which means sharing the jackpot with all of them if you pick those numbers too…

Related posts:

1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Should I Play The Same Lottery Numbers In Every Draw?
3. Repeat Lottery Numbers In Bulgaria!