The way I see it, it's not a matter of increasing your odds of hitting. It's a matter of decreasing the odds against you. The odds will always be in the favor of the lottery itself. No different than in a casino.
And as far as systems go, there are many, many systems here offered by members on LP that are valid systems. Do they hit all the time? No. Do they work for awhile and go "cold"? Yes. The nature of the lottery is that there is no one answer for your question. (or if there is such a system, it is being kept a closely guarded secret by whomever has it)
The game(s) run in "spurts" as far as working patterns go. What works for awhile suddenly diesn't any more, but some other system does. Beware the "experts" that tell you they have a foolproof system that always delivers. There aint no such thing. Especially beware those that have websites trying to sell you a "foolproof guaranteed" system. If they had such a thing, why would they sell it?
There are computer programs out there that are very good "tools" to analyze past draws of games. But in the end, a choice of which numbers (and why) has to be made by the player. I have the programs Versabet, Lottery Director and Lotsoft....they are all good tools for the toolkit, and all of them, I believe, have free trials so you can decide for yourself. (google the names and you should find the websites) . I never buy software for the lottery unless (A) it has a free trial and (B) it pays for itself in winnings before I buy it. (after all, why would I chuck out my hard-earned cash for something that I've used for 21 days and it hasn't produced enough to pay for itself?...such software is not any good, obviously) IF the programmer is charging for something, it has to be more than "pretty to look at".
As to other systems (non software) spend a bunch of time here on LP and go back into the "Systems" forum looking at past posts. Play around with some of the systems/methods members post about. What works in your state may also not be working in another state.
WHen it comes to the big jackpot games (Powerball MM, etc) I personally think that's just a crapshoot, and you are as likely to hit by playing license plate numbers as anything else. After all, there are over 140 million different possible combinations in PB....so zeroing in is going to be a lot of luck.
Sorry I can't give it to you on a platter but I really don't think anyone else can either.
Good luck to you.