In Florida we have a powerball-knockoff game with better odds, but the jackpots are far smaller, and the remaining prizes aren't much. The drawings only run twice a week, and the odds of hitting 4/44 plus a 1/22 megaball are close to 3,000,000, but I decided to give it a shot a few weeks ago since I was tired of wasting money on powerball, which has far worse odds. While beating odds close to 3,000,000 is still next to impossible (like most top prize odds in jackpot games), you still better have a better chance here than even hitting 5 in the powerball.
I managed to hit 3 out of 4 a couple weeks ago with a qp, and I actually missed the 4th winning number by one digit (had 22 instead of 23). Well, I should say the machine missed by one digit since I didn't do anything to affect the process. That was only my first time playing mega money, so it was nice to win nearly 50 bucks on my first try. Last week I bought some qp tickets again, and hit 2 of 4.
I was thinking about giving this a shot without qps tonight, but I really don't know where to even begin after taking a look at the past draws.
The hit frequency on the megaball from the last 3 months worth of drawings have been extremely varied...as there have hardly been any repeating megaballs during that period. 21 and 17 have been the only two numbers that came up twice as the megaball in the past 24 drawings...every other draw has had a different megaball. With frequencies like this, I figure that I might as well just buy 22 separate tickets to cover each megaball!
As for the "easier" task of predicting the other 4 winning numbers, well on the last 24 drawings...with the exception of a very few hot numbers (4, 6, 7, 16, 19)...most of the winning numbers have also been fairly well distributed throughout the number range. So it's very hard to distinguish what's cold/warm/overdue here with frequencies like these, especially considering that the game only runs twice a week. And with only 4 out of 44 numbers being covered on each line you play, you'd really have to buy at least 20 tickets to get a good distribution on your tickets.
At any rate, tonight's jackpot is 1.2 million thanks to rollovers (it hasn't been this high in a couple months), and given the data I provided above, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for greater success on a game like this...other than crossing your fingers.
