This is one of those lottery questions that can make your head spin. Should I play the same lottery numbers or change them? It can turn your brain inside out if you overthink it…
If my numbers haven’t come up yet, surely they are more likely to in future?
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Should I Play The Same Lottery Numbers In Every Draw?
Let’s say we use a die and a coin flip for illustrated purposes. With a die chances to roll any number is 1 / 6. With a coin flip 1 / 2. However the likelihood of rolling 6 fifty times in a row or flipping tails fifty times in a row is highly unlikely in my thinking. Therefore since most lotteries like the American Powerball where I think there are 292 million possible combinations and the combinations drawn to date are a small sample of the possible combinations I’d say it is highly unlikely – in similar thinking above – that although a certain combination may have the same chance as being drawn again as the balls have no memory – it is highly unlikely. Play your favorite number til it hits.
Yes, but mathematically it is exactly as highly unlikely whether or not you change your numbers.
Take roulette for example, there is a 1 in 37 chance for any number. Chances of hitting same number twice is 1 in 1369, and one number hitting 3 times in a row is 1 in 50653… Same applies for lotto or any other lottery drawing.
Yes, but you’re not betting on it hitting 3 times in a row. Even if it just happened twice, it’s still a 1 in 37 chance of it happening again. The odds didn’t change.
I agree. I missed a drawing with my favorite number one time, could’ve won $250k. I’m so upset in Mega Millions! I thought my numbers would never come up so I did not play. It was 4 out of 5 numbers plus the Mega ball and I paid for the Megaplier which was x 5. I’m so upset I cried, could’ve had that money $$$.
So if it doesn’t matter what numbers you play why has there never in the history of lottery had the same combo picked twice.
Not only has it happened, the same numbers have even been drawn 2 weeks in a row.
The only reason it hasn’t happened more often is because not many draws have been made yet with any lottery game, especially when compared to the number of combinations that exist. If you only roll a dice twice, there’s a good chance you’re not going to get the same number the 2nd time – but roll it 20 times and you’re going to see repeat numbers.
So once we’ve had a few million draws on the bigger lottery games then we’ll be seeing repeat combinations a lot more often. (Well, WE won’t see it as we’ll all be long dead by then. Even at 2 draws a week it would take 10,000 years to make a million draws!)
I stand corrected sir 🙂
🙂
I play quick pick more often than not but I do have my own set of numbers.
Speaking of whether or not to play the same numbers. I normally play about 3 lines of numbers on a multi-draw ticket for about a week and then I will get another 3 lines and do the same thing for the next week. My question is does it matter if you use the multi-draw option or not? Can it hurt your chances either way?
Choosing the multi-draw option is no different to buying a ticket with the same numbers for each draw. It can’t hurt.
Last week I picked 15 sets of my own numbers. All the winning numbers came up somewhere in the numbers I picked. Not in a jackpot, but I did manage to win $14 from 3 combinations.
Now I bought 5 chances, all Quick Pick, besides.
Not a SINGLE number of the winning numbers showed up in the 5 lines of numbers that were quick picks. I wish I had won a bet on THAT happening.
The psychic told me the lottery cheats, they have control of what comes out in the lottery. Why will the psychic lie or why will the psychic be wrong?
You see the problem there Gregory is that you’ve allowed a psychic the slightest shred of credibility.
Will I be paid double, if I play the same 026 twice for the same draw on the same slip?
Yes. You can play the same entries more than once, and each one will individually win. But then, you never really win with Pick 3…
I have been playing my lucky birthday numbers for approx 4 years now, and just 2 weeks after I put them on I got 5 numbers for $1600! I keep track of my wins/losses and I am currently $300 down, but I keep positive that one day I will win big. I play extra system 7-8 entries in the big jackpots – it costs more but at least if my numbers do eventually come up I wont have to share it with anyone! I hope this helps you all, good luck, cheers, regards, Stewy Dalby, Queensland 🙂
I’ve done research and played same sets of 10 tickets. Well I play Texas lottery, Cash 5. It’s $1 per set, each ticket you pick 5 numbers. I usually spend $10 per draw. My luck has been to buy at least 10 tickets per draw. That is a total of 50 numbers to pick. I play the same set of numbers for each draw. All 10 of them. I’ve never changed. It’s been about 4 months playing. I haven’t ended up in the negative. My advice is make sure none of the sets have the same number. Make sure all 50 numbers are unique. It seems to be my most successful strategy. I tried to pick birthdays and anniversaries etc. Basically special dates but sometimes them dates or ages could be the same number. It didn’t work well. So just pick as many sets as you can afford and use as many of the numbers available in the drawing. That’ll give you a chance at every number and now you have to leave the rest to luck. Which is getting it in the right row all together. If you can’t afford but one ticket, don’t play. You’ll for sure have low low low chance of winning since you didn’t play the remaining numbers not even once. Im no expert but, just my opinion. Good luck everyone! God bless
I wouldn’t recommend just ‘playing all the numbers’. Yes, it guarantees you get them all somewhere (which feels useful), but they will be spread all over your entries making you no more likely to actually win anything than just playing quick picks.
As you’re playing multiple combinations, why not look into wheeling? Just choose a good wheel with the right kind of win guarantee for the game. Don’t just pick any old thing online though, as there are lots of bad wheels out there. Bluskov’s book for 5 number games is good.
I’m not really surprised that picking special dates didn’t help. If you think about it, why would it? What about those dates meaning something to you would make them any more likely to be drawn? Instead because so many people use this approach to picking numbers, it actually means you are more likely to pick numbers that are the same as someone else – which can mean sharing the jackpot with a lot of other people if you do win (depending on the game).
Finally, one ticket has a chance of winning, no ticket has zero chance of winning. That’s a vast difference 🙂
I’m not 100% sure but I don’t believe that the same jackpot winning numbers have ever come up twice. If that is the case, does that not mean that your numbers will come up eventually?
My lotto tactic right now is to play the same rows for a week. Each row looks similar to the other but with slight tweaks, numbers repeating at times. My theory is that there is no point in playing loads of different rows with loads of different numbers. The result of this is that you see winning numbers spread out and not giving you a financial win. By using the same numbers I reckon I will have a better chance of winning something.
I would love to hear your view on this.
I will write up on how this went for me. If I win, you guys will know.
The exact same numbers have come up again in some games, and it will happen more often in time (bear in mind most games have only ever had a few thousand draws yet have millions of combinations). There has even been a case of the exact same numbers repeating in the very next draw – that was back in 2009. In pure math terms playing the same numbers won’t increase your chances of winning though.
It sounds like you’re on the verge of discovering wheeling systems? These are a way of organizing a pool of selected numbers so that they provide certain guarantees (e.g. match 3 of your pool, win at least a match 3 prize etc). I’d recommend having a look at Bluskov’s book – I think you’ll like it 🙂
Lol, not really surprised my little theory is a well known number trick. I just don’t believe in that playing the same numbers doesn’t give you a better chance. Let me explain why. I searched a set of numbers to see if they have come up. There were weeks where one or two came up and sometimes nothing. Eventually the numbers were actual winners. If I were to choose different numbers every week, I would keep dodging numbers that would definitely come up.
I look at it like this, you can get winning balls like this:
-low numbers 2, 4, 5, 16 18,
-loads of teens, 20, 30s, 40s or 50s.
-mixed low-high and low-mid
There’s a few more but you get where I’m going. If you pick your numbers and stay with them, you will hit them. As I said, I will stay with my “wheeling” method and same number technique and tell you how it goes. I only got one number from 4 rows on Saturday night, I’m expecting an improvement tonight.
Not really. Think of it like rolling a dice. If you roll a 1, that doesn’t make 1 more, or less, likely next time. There’s still 6 sides on the dice – so it’s still just as likely to come up again as anything else. So stick with 1 or go with 3, and your odds are still 1-in-6.
That’s the simple math view. But it isn’t easy (possible?) to build a perfectly random machine, so things gets a little more complex if you take that into account – but that’s a whole different story.