James I wish a voice in my head would tell me which ticket to buy and that it would be a million dollar choice.
I'll tell you what you need to do..just buy 2 - 4 and stop. I don't mean for the day, I mean at that machine or counter. Don't buy up to the winner.
I think what's happening is you're stuck on bad packs or stuck with the idea the winner is there somewhere....the problem is: you do not know
who was there before you and whether they won $1,000 or $20 or $500. You also cannot tell at what point in the pack the winner is hiding.
When I say the winner, it might only be $100. It is nice to win $100 but when you actually want the thousand, and who doesn't, but also are
determined to find it, then that's where all your money is going to go - chasing the bigger win.
10 tickets @ $20 is $200 - realistically, that's not a whole lot of tickets out of a pack - it's 1/3...there's another 2/3 remaining.
Frustration is probably driving you. I think you've lost the thrill of the game. It is fun to play but only to a point where it remains fun and to a
point where you are satisfied with what you win.
You are asking for a strategy, the first is to really work on how you look at a game where most people are losers or are only winning $5 - $20.
These games are not set up to make a bunch of happy winners, there's a lot of miserable losers too. I've had my share of complaints about
tickets but I still like to play. I've said before I'm going to find that $1Mill but I don't need it to be today..or next week either. In my lifetime
would be fine and the sooner the better but when it happens, it happens.
There are so many tickets and so few prizes. Think of all the retailers in a 10 mile radius..then think of your whole state. How many places
do you think are selling tickets? Tons. If you have a ticket that's offering 3 $1MILL prizes, that's 3 out of millions of tickets across the state.
Where is it? In the pack of 30 you're working on? Probably not.
I think the next strategy you have to work on is walking away. I guess we've all been guilty at times of spending more than we wanted to
on instants whether it's $1 or $10 tickets but when you're making that a habit your mindset changes from oh, let me try a few of those to,
sob, where's that winner! That can run into hundreds of dollars, I think I've seen posts where you have plunked down hundreds of dollars
and maybe thousands...
I think the biggest, best strategy for you is to slow down, big time. Tell that voice in your head to shut up after you buy a couple tickets and
they lose...then LEAVE and don't go back...there, anyway. Don't chase instant winners in one pack, they just aren't always waiting for you. I
don't think there is a guaranteed winning strategy to instants...winning rests on the player and how they think. If one winning strategy just
means not losing $1,000 in a day by walking away, that sounds like a winner to me.