OK, first some quick background. Brad Duke was a Powerball winner back in 2005. He won the headline grabbing Powerball jackpot of $220 Million, and after choosing the lump sum payout he more than happily banked $85 Million.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine in 2007 Brad revealed the incredible lottery system that was responsible for his big win.

Don’t worry, I’ll reveal exactly how it works right here.

Here’s what Brad did.

The Brad Duke Lottery System

First he took the last 6 months of Powerball results. Then he figured out the 15 most commonly drawn numbers from those results.

Then he used a wheeling system to combine those 15 numbers together.

In a nutshell, that’s it.

Here’s what is missing from Brad’s explanation though.

Firstly, he doesn’t tell us what kind of wheel he is playing. Is it an abbreviated wheel (potentially fairly cheap), or a full wheel (very expensive indeed for 15 numbers!). He also doesn’t tell us if he’s playing one Powerball number or covering all of them!

Secondly, he doesn’t say how many tickets he’s buying.

You can deduce from his comments though what the likely answer is when he says things ‘got bigger and more complex’.

So he actually started buying a lot more tickets, and as a result won more small prizes.

This, of course, is not a revolutionary lottery system. (Win Lotto Systems is based on the simple premise of ‘buy more tickets, and win more small prizes, while you wait for a big win’).

The Numbers Bit

If you play Brad’s system, you may want to arrange yourself a bank loan first…

Because even if you ignore the Powerball number, there are still 3,003 ways to arrange your 15 most drawn numbers. Cover every Powerball number on top of those and you’ve just bought over 105,000 tickets… feeling rich yet..?

So if for one very charitable moment we assume that analysing those past results actually worked, you still have to either stomach spending $210,000 on Powerball tickets and hoping you’re right – or choose a small amount of those combinations and hope you don’t eliminate the winning one.

Did Brad buy $210,000 of tickets for that draw? No.

Does playing the 15 most drawn numbers from the last 6 months even improve your chances of winning one jot anyway? No.

The Reality Check

The important thing to learn from Brad’s story, is this.

Brad Duke won the Powerball because… he was damn lucky. One of the hundreds(?) of tickets he bought for that draw just happened to be the winning combination.

Now he may believe that combination was more likely to come up. But that doesn’t make it true.

Remember: if the lottery was preditable in this way, it would not be random. And that would put the well paid Powerball Execs in a whole heap of legal trouble – illegal lotteries are not well liked by the legal system!

Still don’t believe me?

Think of it this way. Every week millions of players all over the world do similar analysis, over all kinds of different time periods – but never win!

That very same draw when Brad won the jackpot, hundreds of thousands of Powerball tickets would have been bought by people doing similar analysis to him.

So why didn’t they all share the jackpot? Because they weren’t lucky like Brad Duke!

Back To The Question…

So the idea of strong or weak lottery numbers is a total nonsense. They just don’t exist. There are winners and losers – but we only discover which ones those are after the draw is over and done.

Despite that, there are endless pointless lottery systems that are based entirely on analyzing past results. Do they work? No.

There is no secret formula to guaranteed winnings. No winner who can tell you the secret to how to pick the best numbers.

There is a very limited range of things you can do to improve your chances of winning (and I’ll happily give you those lottery tips and tricks for free).

But does that stop the lottery being fun to play? Of course not.

Good luck in the next draw, however you pick your numbers.

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Most lottery retailers are honest decent people. And they get a real buzz when their store creates a big lottery winner.

But greed can do unpleasant things to some people.

A recent NBC broadcast warned of the danger of dishonest store clerks attempting to steal winning lottery tickets.

Here’s How It Works

You walk into your local store to check your lottery ticket. That could be a scratch-off ticket or a regular lotto game.

Heading over to the scan your ticket machine, you’re pleased to see “Congratulations, see retailer”. (Most machines do not tell you how much you have won!)

So you hand over your ticket to the store clerk who checks the ticket for you, and “bing”, you are indeed a winner. He hands back your winning ticket plus your meagre winnings.

Now the reality is, this dishonest store clerk just switched your ticket for another. Why? Because his machine told him you won a big prize, which he is going to claim for himself once you leave the shop.

How Rare Is This?

It’s impossible to say. The lottery companies themselves are very aware of it and are working hard to prevent it.

But they only investigate big prizes. It’s actually even more likely to happen for small wins where the retailer can simply say “sorry, no win this time” and happily claim your small win.

So How Do You Protect Yourself?

It’s actually really simple.

1. Always sign the back of EVERY ticket as soon as you buy it.
2. Check lottery tickets yourself.
3. Or simply play the lottery online instead.

By all means use a scanner to check for a winning ticket. But if it is a winner, go online or find a newspaper with the lottery results to check which prize you actually won.

UPDATE: This is on the increase – please warn friends and family how to protect themselves. And hit the Like button below to share on Facebook.

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Here’s a reminder why you should not get too carried away sharing the excitement of your big win…

A group of 30 factory workers and craftmen from Avellino in Italy won 33 Million Euros on Italy’s SuperEnaLotto in January 2008.

Now winners are normally anonymous in Italy anyway. But the SuperEnaLotto syndicate were obviously very happy with their win and were not quiet about it.

Unfortunately their good fortune reached the ears of the local Camorra crime clan, who asked around to find out the identities of the lucky winners – and then paid them all a visit. Not surprisingly they were successful in extracting 40,000 Euros out of a good number of them, presumably to help with their protection.

Avellino prosecutor Rosario Cantelmo said that police learnt of the pay-outs while investigating extortion rackets against other local businesses. Five suspects were arrested.

So when the day of your big win arrives, and the lottery company asks you to do a press conference, appear on TV or in a newspaper advert… say no and stay anonymous. Have a party to celebrate but don’t announce to the world why. Your life as a big winner will be a lot smoother.

Otherwise you too may find out what happens to lottery winners…

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This week Ryanair gets hit by 50 claims to have been that angry customer. And can they have the money please.

Now I’m sure budget airline Ryanair is used to angry passengers… but normally passengers can correctly recall what they were angry about. Amusingly, only 10 of the wannabe scratchcard munchers were even passengers on the Poland to UK flight!

Unfortunately none of the remaining 10 bizarre claimants will be getting the money either. Ryanair confirmed that without being able to produce the winning ticket, the claim cannot be verified. A spokesman for Ryanair said:

Unfortunately, when the passenger ate his scratch card he chewed away his chance to pick up the €10,000 cash prize, which will now go to charity.

The moral of the tale being either a) don’t drink while flying, or b) it’s worth investing in that anger management counselling before you hit the jackpot.

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And not just the biggest jackpot ever for the EuroMillions – but the biggest jackpot in the world won by one single winner.

So Who Won?

That winner has been revealed as a 25 year old woman living in Majorca, who is now about €126 Million richer. Her name has not been revealed (and very wise too – folks, when you win big decline the publicity unless you want your life to become a complete circus!).

It’s a real shame that money wasn’t split over lots of different winners. After all, what can you do with €126 Million that you can’t do with €10 Million?!

Although according to the UK Telegraph newspaper, it does make her instantly richer than the Bee Gees!

Winning Numbers

Those winning EuroMillions numbers were 4, 29, 23, 31, 24 and Lucky Stars 9 and 8.

Get your tickets for the next EuroMillions draw now.

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“We’ve lived in the same house 20 years and Stewart still lives with us” said Bob, 64, of Horsham. “He is not engaged or married, so if there is anybody who can help him out, he’s looking for a rich lady with sporting interests”. Bob may have been joking, but thankfully Stewart’s two older sisters have left home.

Bob and wife Pat, 65, own and run a garage together, and say they will carry on working as they love it so will keep on running the business for as long as they enjoy it.

As to what the lottery winners plan to do with the money, Bob, self-confessed motorbike nut, says “I don’t know what we’ll spend it on yet, but we’ve booked a holiday to the Isle of Man TT races next year” – and he does plan to add another motorbike to his collection.

Their selected winning numbers were chosen at random, although Bob was nearly in trouble as he had been suggesting they try changing them as they never won…

Of course you and I know keeping the same numbers or changing them is not going to affect what comes out of the ball machine. So they were just as likely to win if they had changed their numbers – maybe they would have won last week instead!

So do you stick with the same numbers every week? Or do you think it’s superstitious nonsense to avoid changing your numbers? Let me know what you think.

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Whilst designer clothing is not at the top of the pairs shopping list, they plan to pay off their mortgages and give money to the eight children they have between them.

But they both plan to continue working at their jobs with Dungeness Power Station in Kent. “Nobody at work knew we were naturists…” said Brian. I have I feeling the secret is probably out now..!

The couple played just three lines a week, mostly made up from family birthdays. Of course playing birthdays is not going to give you a better chance of winning as the wise players here will know. But it does give you a reason to adjust the way you play – unless you want to share your jackpot with lots of other lottery winners it makes sense not to play too many birthdate numbers.

What do you think? How many birthday numbers (1-31) do you play in a line? How many birthdate numbers in a line would it take before you rejected a randomly generated entry? Add your comments below.

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So are we about to see the richest ever Australian lottery winner?

The highly popular Australian Powerball game was made to pay out very big prizes – and very big jackpot winners. Previously, the largest ever lottery wins have been more than $30 million only 4 times. And that’s since the game launched back in 1996, making the draw this week a very special event for all Australians.

Who were the other big winners?

Three of those huge jackpots were winners from the Powerball game, with one each from Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Oz Lotto provided the fourth biggest win.

Oz Lotto has also created the biggest ever Australian lottery prize to date. And it happened just a few weeks ago. A very nice 1st division prize of $47 Million was claimed on 29 April 2008. It was shared by just 2 winning tickets, both bought in Sydney’s western suburbs. One was by a young man who claimed $24 Million, the other a syndicate of laboratory workers – who after sharing out the prize money still got $1.5 Million each to celebrate with.

If you want to join the fun for this historical draw there is an Australian Powerball syndicate you can join online. It’s open to players all over the world, so a great choice if you can’t get a ticket because you don’t live in Australia! And as a syndicate it goes without saying that you also get a better chance of winning too – particularly important if you want to play powerball draws which are tougher to win to start with.

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