Gail Howard’s “Lotto: How to Wheel a Fortune” Review

Read 43 Comments...

Gail Howard claims 106 lottery jackpots for her wheeling systems. Using ‘Balanced Wheels’ that are a ‘breakthrough’ for lottery players.

What She Says

  • My systems have won 106 first prizes on the lottery
  • I’m the most credible lottery expert in the USA
  • A breakthrough for lottery players
  • I’ve been selling systems for 29 years
  • But I have never won a jackpot myself

What I Think

I’m going to try and avoid getting into the hype and publicity machine that has been behind the Gail Howard company for many years. And instead focus on the merits of this book alone.

It is important to note however that wheeling itself does NOT increase the chances of winning a jackpot. 50 wheeled combinations has mathematically exactly the same chance of hitting a jackpot as 50 quick picks.

That’s a fact backed up by real math professors with proper Ph.D.’s and specialist research in this specific area.

There is some merit to wheeling however. But it’s in the covering a range of numbers you want to play in a known way (win guarantees which I’ll come to in a moment). Not some magic way to ‘beat the lottery’. It can also help win more smaller prizes more often while you cross your fingers for a bigger one.

The number of jackpot winners Howard claims is actually proof that wheeling does not itself improve odds of hitting a jackpot. Otherwise why are there only 106 winners in 29+ years of selling Gail’s systems? What happened to the other 99.99% of people who bought the book? And played every single week since?

But Back To The Book…

So we have a book about wheeling. And in ‘How To Wheel a Fortune’ Gail starts off pretty well.

The first few chapters cover generally what wheeling is and how lottery odds work. Things get a little fuzzy around why abbreviated systems are better (or ‘Balanced Wheels’ as Gail trademarks them). Yes, they cost a lot less, because they eliminate ‘expensive combinations’ while still giving a ‘guaranteed minimum win assurance’ – but clearly you lose something by dropping all those ‘expensive’ combinations. This isn’t explained.

Abbreviated wheels trade the ‘guarantee’ of a jackpot for a ‘guarantee’ of a lesser match or prize. That’s what you lose.

Of course, we need to remember what ‘guarantee’ really means in wheeling terms. Win guarantees always come with an ‘if’. For example, “win at least a Match 4 prize IF 6 of the numbers drawn are in your pool of 10 numbers”.

That’s not a bad thing. But it’s nearly always misunderstood, and is the reason lottery wheels are so often ‘mis-sold’.

Off The Rails

Things really go off the rails though when Gail starts to advise on how to pick numbers.

For example, the ‘Balanced Game’ is where Gail attempts to educate us about ‘sums’ (i.e. the total of all the numbers drawn when added up). She says it’s far more likely that the results will add up to e.g. 150 in total when playing a 6 from 49 game. So clearly we should make our numbers add up to the most likely range of sums.

The observation is true. But also entirely useless.

Do you know any lottery game that pays out any prize for matching the sum of the numbers drawn..?

There aren’t any.

This advice increases the chance of matching the pattern, but it does nothing to increase your chances of winning.

The entire theory is completely false, yet it has persisted in Gail’s book since the first edition back in 1988.

The Wheels Themselves

Ignoring the rest of the incorrect information about picking numbers we come to the actual wheels.

And there’s a fairly good range here. You have win guarantees ranging from a win 3, 4, 5 and 6, for a wide pool of chosen numbers.

There are also what Gail calls ‘Power Number Wheels’ (i.e. key number wheels), but I’m not sure I see the point of these. They let you cover a wider range of numbers, but only if you are positive one particular number will come out. That number then appears in every combination of the wheel. So they are really just abbreviated systems with gaping holes in them.

But the main problem with Gail’s abbreviated wheels is that you can do better.

The world has moved on since Gail began selling wheeling systems on TV shopping channels way back in the day. Mathematicians have produced wheels with the same win guarantees that cost less to play, such as the Iliya Bluskov wheeling systems.

That could be as little as 2 less tickets for a small wheeling system, or it could be as many as 50 or 60 less tickets on larger wheels. But that’s a big saving in ticket costs over the long term. If you’re going to wheel numbers it makes sense to use the best optimized wheels possible. And these are not them.

In Conclusion

There are serious faults with this book. Despite being the latest edition, the wheels themselves are dated and you can get better elsewhere. Yet this is the key reason for, and the majority of the content of the book.

The advice about picking numbers on the other hand is highly misleading and simply wrong. This is unacceptable from a publisher who claims to be an authority in their field with 29 years experience.

Click Here For Howard’s Book On Amazon

Please share your comments or reviews of Gail’s ‘Wheel a Fortune’ book below. Thanks.

Update: Gail Howard Died 19 October 2015

It’s seems fairly clear Gail has had little to do with the company promoting her products for a long time anyway. But before her death she put out a statement saying the business would be continued by the ‘Hicks family’ (who built the various software tools and website).

43 Comments so far ↓

  • Ralph

    This is UNBELIEVABLE. People still fall for this stuff. Surely, it’s the bludgers and the lazy ones who go for this crap. I had my aunt spend thousands to get this to work on Windows 8 64Bit with no luck. Must mention she is in a cared facility for people who have nothing. You can guess why!

    Gail Howard, I’ll tell you a better name that fits the bill for her as well, FAIL COWARD.

    The support assholes wanted me to run it in DOS Shell (20+ years old version before Microsoft made windows).

    All the best folks.

    • Francis Hendershott

      I have been using Gail’s system and software for six months. I have improved considerably. When I started, I could predict ONE number every three weeks. Now, thanks to Gail’s system, 5-7 days a week I can create a number pool of 20-25 numbers that contains three of the winning numbers. One day I even predicted all five! It takes commitment and practice. Sorry you’ve had such a bad return.

      • LG

        But what are you comparing with Francis? How many combinations were you playing before versus now?

        If you’re creating a pool of 20-25 numbers then of course you’re going to match some of the winning numbers – just on pure chance. Have you compared with doing the same thing with random selections?

    • MB

      The only reason you can’t win on Gail Howard System is because you don’t truly understand them. She was definitely on top of the game. A lot of players are just not grasping the information. Sums of numbers is really a good thing. Balanced wheels are essential. Sure there may be more sophisticated systems now but she definitely laid out the ground work so quit hating on a pioneer introducing some type of knowledge on lottery.

      • LG

        I wish this were the case. Gail popularised wheeling – she certainly didn’t invent it. She made a lot of money selling it, but never won herself. Virtually everything else she published is nonsense (including ‘sums’). Which is well supported by the fact 99.9% of her customers haven’t won the jackpot.

  • Lucree

    I feel this system is good it mixes up the numbers for you but it does not tell you how to get the power single number, so if you have a better system share it. Yes the more numbers you play the more expensive it is, also the more chances you have to win.

    • LG

      Wheeling is not really about mixing up the numbers, it’s about creating carefully designed systems with specific win guarantees. And then choosing the right one for the game and budget. The Gail Howard company wheels are OK, just not the best (see Bluskov). But as I say in the review, the real problem with this book is the highly inaccurate advice given on picking numbers.

      • Francis Hendershott

        I sort of see what you mean. Here’s a good crosscheck for Gail’s system which can run very hot/cold.

        1. Take the most recent winning numbers and place them in a row.
        Multiply each number by the Fibonacci percentages (.286, .382, .5, .618, .786, 1.13, 1.286).
        3. This will create a grid of numbers which you can use as a pool to crosscheck Gail’s system. I can now routinely find 3 winning numbers out of 5, and am using Gail’s system to continue improving.

      • LG

        If it runs “very hot/cold”, how have you proved it’s anything other than pure random luck?

    • Trace

      Yes, you are right about the more tickets you play the better your chances are of winning. Only a fool wouldn’t agree with that. I caught all 4 numbers in (texas two step) game but missed out on the bonus ball which was 3 and got $1,100.00 instead of $200,000. I had the bonus ball on another ticket instead. And did play about 10 tickets for the two step.

      • Jorgehinojosa

        You should stay true with your bonus number. 4,30,32 and wheel the 4th number.

  • Chief

    I think people don’t understand how to use Gail Howard system so they said it doesn’t work. If you are using her system as a number generator, then you are wrong. They created the system purposely to increase your chance of winning the lottery. They even made it clear that, they do not recommend the smartpicks. Most of what she explained is something I have been doing on my own for so long but it’s always difficult and I use her software to analyse things. For example, whenever I worked to get my number combinations, I test ran them to make sure those combinations have not been drawn before. And secondly, they never said winning is guaranteed with their system so those of you saying you bought the system but never hit the jackpot, you are confused. Lastly if I win the jackpot following the advice in their system, I am not gonna tell anyone about it. Even if I should tell them I won the jackpot based on their advice, I won’t allow them to publish my name about it as I don’t want family and friends to know my financial status and I believe a lot of people will do the same so 109 people saying they won the lottery with her system is possible. You don’t have to win the lottery to publish how to win it. Even Steven Nison teaches how to trade forex using Japanese candlestick but he doesnt trade the forex.

    • Trace

      I would like for you to teach me about the software because I don’t really have time to go deep into it like that. I don’t like how it really wheels the numbers when you put them in. It puts the same number back on every possible ticket. I use the same numbers on more than one ticket but the software really does it differently. Please educate me on the software. I have about 4 or 5 of the softwares from them.

  • Trace

    Ok LG. I have the Gail Howard book called Lottery Master Guide and only get to read a part of it and it shows about summing up numbers, high and low numbers, odd and even numbers, skip strategies, long shot number, numbers that are more likely to play and numbers that are hot and cooling off. Please tell me something that’s more useful since you said her advice on some stuff is not accurate.

  • Jorge N/A Hinojosa

    Are you all insane? Just buy all the bonus balls from 1-35 and use the same 4 white balls for each drawing. You’ll invest 60 a week but will have to hit only the 4 white balls.

  • John

    I feel of all the lottery systems out there that I have seen, Gail Howards Smart Luck systems are simply the best. Will you win everytime? Of course not. But I definitely feel that when I use them properly, they give me an edge.

    • LG

      It depends if you mean the wheeling systems themselves or the other advice – as I say in my review the number picking advice is very poor (factually incorrect) so will not be helping at all. But wheeling is a useful part of your overall strategy. It’s just nowhere near the ‘magic system’ that the Gail Howard company claim.

      • John

        I have very little experience with the Smart Luck number picking strategies but I definitely feel the wheeling systems give me an edge.

      • LG

        The wheels themselves are OK (though some are not fully optimized last I checked). It’s the claims their company makes that aren’t OK in my opinion. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Subscribe To Comments?

Home » Blog » Lottery System & Software Reviews » Gail Howard’s “Lotto: How to Wheel a Fortune” Review

P.S. Did you get my Lottery Tips emails yet?