With MegaMillions, 49% of the White Balls drawn have hit 3 or more times in the previous 30 drawings. In 49.5% of those drawings 3 or more WB and in 3.5% of the drawings all 5 WB had done that. There are only 24-34 WB/drawings that have done that so using that stat can also reduce the number pool.

Rick, I'm confused. If 40% of the time there will be no repeats from the last draw, doesn't that mean that 60% of the time there will be repeats?

If 40% of the time there will be no repeats from the last draw, doesn't that mean that 60% of the time there will be repeats?

Yes, and that lowers the odds by about half. If you leave 5 or 6 numbers out of the equation, the odds are lowered. If you left out even more numbers, you'd be a-crunching-away..lol

It's the process of elimination at work. And if your half good at it, you can hone it into a profitable venture....by narrowing down,,,less money spent wagering.

Great common sense advice, thanks. People need to understand this is a methodology for playing over a period of time not just a single game, there will be times you effectively improve your odds significantly as you have shown.

Nancy, Yes you are right. In the Pick 5 game 40% of the time you will be right and 60% of the time you will be wrong. But in those 40% you will have lowered your odds by more than half.

Consider it this way. In the Pick 5 game 49% of the time the draw will have one repeat from last game.    But which number will repeat? Your odds are 4/1 of picking the right number to repeat and you will be correct 49% of the time if there is exactly one repeat.

No repeats: In 4 out of 10 draws your odds are lowered from 575,000 to 1 down to 278,000 to 1.

Using repeats: Your odds are always 575,000 to 1.

This odds reduction also applies to matching four or three numbers.

When playing 6/49 games or MM/PB this odds reduction becomes even more effective with a higher chance of there being no repeats.

Jarasan made a good point. "This is a methodology for playing over a period of time". What you are counting on is those draws without repeats where you've significantly lowered your odds. You will be correct a MINIMUM of 40% of the time.

Thanks for answering, Rick but I guess I'm being stupid. Yesterday just 1 person won a lot of money playing Fant 5 in FL. I just checked my numbers and tonight (Sat) 1 person won $288K and #35 was the last number, same as Thurs - 2 consecutive draws. Also, 10 was in Thurs night's pick and also in tonight's. I've seen a lot of 2 number combinations hit several times, if not on consecutive evenings, more than twice during one week. I do understand what you are saying. Like the stock market, those who wait patiently will make money over time. But it's the risk taker who gets wealthy (or goes completely broke.)

So this is what I am saying. Let's say tonight I was thinking of your post here and decided it made perfect sense. I was going to bet 3-10-12-26-35 but I wanted to "significantly lower" my odds. So I changed 35 to another number because it was drawn last night. Therefore, I just won $105 instead of splitting $288,409.43 with someone (who probably bought a quick pick like the winners on Tues, Wed, Thurs & Fri)    So, yes, I agree that this is a good way to cast out the repeats that might keep you from hitting a few numbers once in a while for $10 or $100, but not hitting just one jackpot that is the exception wipes out all the small wins put together for decades. Everyone is trying to apply common sense, logic and statistics to a game that doesn't have any logic or patterns, and when it does, there are so many exceptions that by following a rule, you might just cost yourself the win of a lifetime.

Nancy, here are the stats for the last 1000 draws of Fantasy Five:

No repeat: 43.4%

One repeat: 43.7%

Two + repeats: 12.9%

As you can see draws with no repeats have happened exactly as many times as draws with one repeat.

I see your point but I'd rather be playing at half the odds some of the time than full odds all the time.

I should have added...this isn't for people who play a certain set of numbers all the time as I know Nancy does. Those players have an "emotional attachment" to their numbers (e.g. birthdays, ages, etc.) and they should always play their numbers as they have, without regard to repeats.

The approach I'm proposing is for those who do not have an "emotional attachment" to their number picks.

Hope that makes sense.