Last night I won $43 but it cost me $12 to get that win and spent another $12 for tonight’s drawing. To me it's not worth mentioning because in two more draws that win could be long gone.
I had a pretty good run playing a pick-5 system that consistently picked 2, 3, and an occasional 4 numbers out of 14. The wheel I used cost $19 a draw and after a month I had spent about $600 to 'win' about $100. The idea was to hit the jackpot so while playing on the winnings was nice, that's not what I had in mind.
Granted I did hit a couple of 4 out of 14 numbers a few time and only needed 1 more number but that doesn't mean had I used 15 numbers I would have hit all 5. I have no idea how many numbers I'd need to wheel to consistently match 4. If I added 4 more numbers to 18, the same type of wheel (3if4) would cost $52 but since consistently matching 2, 3 and an occasional 4 doesn't cover the cost of the wheel, I'd have to consistently match 4 numbers.
Even matching all 5 numbers out of 14 or 18 doesn't mean hitting a jackpot. There are 19 combinations in the wheel I used and that's only 0.1% of the 2002 total combinations. Of course luck plays a huge role so breaking even and/or winning a couple of bucks looks pretty good.