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. Does Buying More Tickets Change The Odds Of Winning The Lottery?
2. Which UK Lotto Game Has The Best Chances Of Winning?
3. Are Winning Lottery Numbers Repeated?

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. Are My Chances Of Winning Better If I Play Less Often..?
3. Chances of Winning Mega Millions?

[A] There are lots of interesting things you can do with old lottery results. You can apply all sorts of analysis on past results, and come up with lots of intriguing things.

Even the lottery companies do it themselves. Many official lottery sites have things like lottery frequency checker tools on them, so you can see how often each ball has been drawn.

But the problem with this kind of analysis, is that it’s entirely useless in predicting what’s going to happen next.

Here’s why…

Lottery Randomness Looks Weird

I know this sounds a bit Douglas Adams but the big problem with randomness is that it can often look so very unrandom.

For something to be truly random, all results have to be possible.

So for there to be any significance in some numbers appearing more often than others, there must by definition be something wrong with the draw process. In others words it isn’t random.

Yes, that’s theoretically possible – but bear in mind lottery companies put an awful lot of effort into ensuring their draws are random.

By all means fire up your Excel spreadsheet, plug in all the past results, and make charts of hit frequency. If you find that kind of stuff fun.

(No offence intended – I’m a maths and probability geek!)

But please don’t be fooled into thinking this kind of analysis will increase your chances of winning the lottery.

It won’t do your chances of winning any harm to play this way, it just won’t improve them any either.

For more help with winning and real stuff you can do to improve your odds, get my free lottery tips course.

Related posts:

1. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1
2. Lottery Advice – What’s Your Game?
3. Can Anyone Predict What Lottery Numbers Will Be Drawn..?

I think we’ve given enough publicity and space over to Mr Brown.

And apart from which Derren fans will shortly all be moving on to talking about how he made them feel stuck to their sofa..! (Control The Nation hits tonight… and I very much suspect he hasn’t just bought a job lot of superglue)

The Trick Explained

So, here’s a great little video that demonstrates the secrets of how the whole split screen camera trick thing works. For anyone still not sure, yes, it was just a trick:-

Watch Closely, See The Trick Revealed…

And if you found that a bit of a let down after all the build up of the ‘predicting lottery numbers’ malarkey, then this alternative explanation should give you some minor chuckle relief:-

[P.S. If you want to know how Derren does his crazy mind trick voodoo check out this video]

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown Lottery – How It Was Really Done
2. Derren Brown – How To Win The Lottery?
3. Derren Brown Reveals Secret Of Lottery System Scams

He entertained as usual – the guy is a great showman – but he didn’t actually tell us how the trick was done. All was NOT revealed. Which is fine. Except that is exactly what we were promised!

He did of course misdirect and entertain, which is the nature and fun of the show.

Derren tells a small group of people they can predict lottery numbers, and they become genuinely impressed at being ‘one out’. Being one out is also known as being wrong of course. Nobody wins a prize for nearly matching a number! (But even letting them get ‘close’ is pure Derren at work of course)

The important facts to remember are:-

1. Derren is not a psychic or mystic (he actually debunks people who claim to be!)
2. Derren cannot predict lottery results, it’s simply not possible.
3. It’s a trick, that’s what he does.

Derren ended the show as ‘whatever you choose to believe is up to you’, but we were cheated on the promise of him giving us the real answer. And that was an unusually flat and diasappointing ending to the illusion.

There was no ‘reveal’ and then further twist to leave us confounded and impressed.

Instead we’re simply left with the reality of ‘oh, so it was just a cheap camera trick then’.

Shame.

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

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown – How To Win The Lottery?
2. Derren Brown Lottery Explained
3. Derren Brown Reveals Secret Of Lottery System Scams

He got all 6 correct.

Or did he…

Derren is a brilliant entertainer, and worth seeing live on stage if ever you get the chance.

But remember, he is an illusionist and entertainer. He doesn’t really have magic powers, any more than David Blaine, Uri Geller or Paul Daniels.

All will be revealed on Friday night.

So how do you think he did it?

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

Related posts:

1. Derren Brown Lottery – How It Was Really Done
2. Derren Brown Lottery Explained
3. Derren Brown Reveals Secret Of Lottery System Scams

A friend recommended it to them, but they wanted to get an expert opinion before spending any money… so can you guess my opinion yet..? 

They say it’s a lottery pool. Well, actually they don’t say that, but their members tend to!

The site actually says:-

create a lottery pool that reaches across the street or around the world

Note the vital use of the word ‘create’…

Xzotto Misses The Point By Impressive Margins!

I think somewhere in the design stage sombebody lost the plot.

Here’s what I mean.

As a lottery player I want to win the lottery.

As an enlightened lottery player, I know those junk systems based on analysing past results are a waste of money.

So I’m really looking for a better chance of winning. Cool, that’s the idea of a lottery pool.

So what does Xzotto offer?

You join for free. You buy your lottery tickets through them at normal price. You don’t get any pooling of tickets. You only get to keep 50% of your winnings.

Huh?

Seriously. No increase to your chances of winning, and you lose half your winnings.

That is what you really get, I’ve checked with them!

But that’s not a lotto pool?

Yeah, I know!

It’s also WORSE than buying a ticket at your local store.

YEAH, I KNOW!

So What’s All This Monthly Subscription Stuff About Then?

In short – it’s one of those business opportunity things. You pay US$25 per month for the ‘Team Management Software’.

Yes, US$300 per year. Forever.

And yes, this sounds an awful lot like just the software needed to run the business opportunity itself…

You still don’t get any lottery tickets or pooling for that. But you do get US$5 a month for all the other people you get to subscribe to the software.

And if the people you introduce, and the people they introduce also buy tickets – note the ‘IF’ – then you get to keep some of their winnings.

But That Sucks Too, Doesn’t It!?

Pretty much.

Suck Reason 1
US$25 per month (forever) is a lot to pay for ANY software. Even Microsoft failed to sell subscriptions to it’s full blown Office software at only US$69 per YEAR. And if you really want software to manage a lottery pool, use a spreadsheet, free!

Suck Reason 2
It’s still not a lottery pool. You have to build your own pool by introducing other people. If you wanted to do that, why bother with Xzotto?

So Why Join?

Xzotto has generated a few thousand members. No, I don’t how either.

I suspect they have all been sucked in by the premise of ‘making a quick buck’, so the lottery side is totally irrelevant to them. They could be subscribing to a Zac Efron fan club for all they care.

But if any Xzotto players can explain why Suck Reasons 1 and 2 are wrong, please do comment below.

Seriously. Open debate. But please don’t just say “I hate you, you don’t understand” like a sullen teenager.

Do you think you get value for money? Is the software genuinely of value, and worth that much? Or is it just acceptable losses until you find enough other people you want to put in the same position… (house of cards style)!?

Related posts:

1. Xzotto Launches Floating 5 (Still Sucks…)
2. Derren Brown Lottery Explained
3. Picking Lottery Numbers – Myth 1

When picking lottery numbers you should NEVER pick the numbers that were drawn last week, because there is no chance they will be drawn this week…

Fact

Last weeks numbers still have EXACTLY the same chance of being drawn as every other combination! (Crazy huh)

Reason

I know it sounds logical at first. Who ever heard of the same numbers being picked twice in a row? Never happened right?

But the reality is it could happen.

Yeah, OK, so it could – but it’s still far less likely than other numbers, right..?

No!

It’s EXACTLY as likely as all the other numbers. Or to put it another way, it’s exactly as UNlikely as all the other possible results.

(Because all combinations are unlikely anyway. That’s the nature of a lottery, there are millions of combinations. So everything is unlikely.)

We Did WHAT Last Week..?!

You see there is no ‘memory effect’ here.

Those little balls have no brains, so they don’t know what happened last week. They just bounce around and pop out again without the slightest idea of what last weeks numbers were.

Don’t Believe The Hype

This myth is exactly the sort of thing those junk lottery systems use to take your money.

We’ll eliminate all those nasty unlikely combinations so you get a better chance of winning…

It’s a nice claim. But sadly it just isn’t true.

So when it comes to picking lottery numbers, excluding past results will NOT help your chances of winning. Right?

Related posts:

1. Picking Better Lottery Numbers… Or Not!
2. The Lottery Number Frequency Myth
3. Repeat Lottery Numbers In Bulgaria!

(I think the OSA stands for ‘Overseas Subscribers Agents’ or something similar)

Because Elaine, a subscriber to my lottery tips newsletter, asked me if they are any good.

Now I know they sell lottery tickets online for lotteries all over the world, and apparently do a lot of postal mailings too.

I’ve personally never used them, but I’m very interested to hear your experiences – because when I looked today…

I Was SHOCKED At The Prices They Charge!

Now Elaine was asking about the massively popular El Gordo Christmas lottery. This is the one that all of Spain go absolutely nuts about – mainly because it has the most ridiculously big prize pool you will have ever seen. I mean, what other lottery in the world has a prize pot of 2.3 BILLION!

The draw date is coming up fast on 22nd December, and tickets supplies are strictly limited for this draw.

So I checked out what OSA Lotteries are charging. And as I said, I was truly shocked. These guys are charging SEVEN TIMES the normal ticket price for their El Gordo lottery groups. No, really! (And their groups are 100 in size – which is too big).

Don’t get me wrong – it’s absolutely fair and necessary to charge extra.

Because there is a lot of admin and other overheads involved in running a lottery group, sourcing the tickets from Spain, checking results, claiming and distributing winnings. Clearly all this costs money.

But then why is it ‘OSA Lotteries’ that the e-Lottery syndicate people can do it all for a lot less than half of what you are charging..?

My advice to Elaine, stuff OSA, grab a place with e-Lottery before they sell out. (That’s what I just did. And if you want a piece of crazy Spanish fun, you’ll do the same)

So what do you think of OSA Lotteries? Have you ever used them? What did they charge, and for how many tickets and what size group?

No related posts.

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. Which Lottery Has The Best Odds Of Winning?
3. Chances of Winning Mega Millions?