I'd rather win some bucks myself.
Sometimes it isnt too hard to predict whether or not a JP will be won. Many Sundays dont produce a Take5 JP winner. But when a JP is won on a Sunday, there's usually only one winner. And that's a GOOD thing! (Even though the JP is smaller than normal, the sole winner doesnt have to split it with anyone else.) So I try to play every Sunday.
Friday's are a good day to play Take5 too. That's the day of the week the JP's are the biggest. The problem with Friday's is, when a JP is won on a Friday, it usually gets split by multiple winners.
For Take5, as in any lottery game, it's all about the total number of 5 number combinations that are sold. NY doesnt release that number. They do announce the number of winners in each category, but they never say how many losers were purchased. If we knew both the number of winners, and the number of losers, we could add them together and we'd know how many lines of 5 numbers were sold on any given day.
In Take5, there are 575,757 possible 5 number combinations. In order for a JP to be won, my guess is, they have to sell at least two thirds of that number. (380,000 different 5 number combo's) NY sells a lot more than 380,000 5 number combo's, but there are many duplicate combo's sold. (For instance, many people play 1,2,3,4,&5 every day.) Have you ever seen a JP be won by multiple players, and two or more of them were QP's? And sometimes in addition to two winners with QP's, you might also see somebody won by picking that same set of 5 numbers themselves.
What I'm talking about in the above paragraphs is referred to as "coverage" by The NYS Lottery. Low ticket sales means low "coverage" of the possible 575,757 combinations. Which in turn probably means no JP winner. Big ticket sales translates into big coverage, and a JP is probably going to be won. That's what usually happens with Mega Millions and Powerball. When the JP gets super big, lotto fever kicks in, and a ga-zillion tickets get sold. Bingo! We have a winner! Smaller sized PB and MM JP's do get won occasionally, but low coverage is usually why the JP keeps building until everybody goes nuts over the size of the JP, and buys some tickets.