This is an interesting topic ... I go through the manuvers every December, plotting new strategy or staying with the old for another year. I usually have a pen and pad and first decide how much to spend a month ... that figure may change but I start somewhere ... let's just say $100 a month for a start.
Then I try to figure out what's the best game or games to play for $100 ... PA has five large lottery games of various odds and jackpots ...
Treasure Hunt, Cash 5, Match 6 (6/49) and then MM and PB. At this time I do not play the Daily 3, 4 or 5 games.
For the last ten years or so with a limited lottery budget I just decided to play the harder five lotto games for a larger reward ... of course there was "no reward" over the years, just lots of discouragement ... I would cut back buying less tickets for awhile and then I would read a story about someone hitting it big ... hope was back so I went back to my game plan or did some tweaks on a game or two.
For several years I read the posts (every post) from the mountain man from TN ... always enjoyed his humor and lottery advice when he posted ... his theory was to always have a ticket on every game, if I remember it correctly ... never knowing when the "Lucky Lady" would strike. I did that most of the time but with all the matrix changes on MM and PB and how hard they are to hit compared to 5 or 6 years ago ... the games were still hard to hit back then but the odds were somewhat better than today.
Last year (2014) I tried and tweaked my game plan a lot ... with only so many dollars to spend I dropped having a ticket on every game and decided to move that money to one or two games ... I mostly concentrated on the Match 6 (6/49) game the last half of 2014 ... I would only play Cash 5 and Treasure Hunt when the jackpots were higher ... so I saved those dollars for a chance at something more rewarding.
Again remember I am talking about having a monthly "lottery budget" and trying to get the most bang out of those limited dollars ... some people would have a larger "monthly" lottery budget and be able to work with more games or put more dollars on just one or two games.
So ... is having a ticket on every large lotto game the way to go ... or throwing all the dollars on MM or a 6/49 game might give a person a better chance at a jackpot reward ... I don't know, each person has their own theory or idea of a winning strategy.
Now to the present ... I started 2015 with the idea of playing the 6/49 game with four tickets every draw ... $72 a month and then covering the Cash 5 and Treasure Hunt with $3 QPs each and every day ... last year I used to think $5 a day but it would just be too much money ... $300 to cover just those two games ... so I dropped the $5 to $3 ... it's still high at $180 a month but there (should) may be some return from hits through the month ... in theory there should be "some" return but it's not a sure thing. I would still cover the 6/49 game but maybe only three tickets instead of four.
So I bought a week's worth of three TH and C5 tickets on Jan 2nd ... had those two games already covered through New Years from Christmas. Just the usual misses so with a few $1 hits ...
Just to mentioned what happened last night with me and the Cash 5 ... I have three QPs through Thur and last night Monday Jan 5th the Cash 5 numbers were: 3, 18, 21, 41, 43 ... and one set of my numbers is as follows ...
03, 17,22, 40, 41 ... I did get $1 but those numbers always "one off" ... I have seven Match 6 tickets that I played for five draws ... hit $2 on three and had three tickets with three numbers scattered ... you need four numbers to get $2 that way ... but on all those tickets there are many numbers just "one off" ... would have been some nice money hits if the numbers had just tweaked a little better.
I know this happens to every serious lottery player ... however last night I woke up early through the night and started thinking lottery strategy ... I came up with something new that I may try for the rest of January and beyond.
I remember reading about the young woman from Michigan who hit the MM jackpot on June 13, 2014 ... Friday the 13th ... she said she started playing the lottery ... the MM game at 19 buying $5 in tickets twice a week and after five years at age 24 she got lucky on Friday the 13th winning 66 million.
I am now thinking with so little reward from pumping dollars on the Cash 5 and Treasure Hunt in PA just to mostly win a few dollars ... I might as well pick one of the big games and "throw" my money away on that for a real shot at life changing jackpot.
I turned this over in head for hours ... how much to spend, to play $1 tickets or $2 tickets ... the young woman in Michigan only bought $1 tickets but her plan worked and at 24 she was rewarded early in life, she didn't have to play for 30 or 40 years, luck came her way ... also she started playing with an older MM matrix and continued with a newer, harder matrix.
In my thinking, I like having the extra dollar for a $2 ticket since the MM game has more 5s than 2s in the Multiplier ... unlike PB that has more 2s than anything else ... and the 2s mostly show up ... I really don't like the PB anymore ... but even with the horrible odds with MM, that extra dollar can really be a nice payoff if you get a lucky hit with more 4s and 5s in the mix.
I played a MM QP for fives draws with the extra dollar ... $10 ... last Friday the MBall was 12 which was on my QP ... so I got $4 back but I never get any extra numbers for extra dollars when I do get a hit ... it's a tough game!!!
Unless the MM has quietly changed things ... there are more 4s and 5s than 2s, at least in 2014.
So there is no sure hit or guarantee for a win but maybe limited lottery dollars would be best spent on a large jackpot game like MM ... at least for awhile to experiment and see if any hits come along.
Now the final decision, how much to play every game ... as for now I am thinking 15 games or $30 every draw ... $270 a month ... again it would be an experiment to see what hits ... with the extra dollar ... would occur, maybe no returns but it's interesting thinking about it. It seems silly to me to throw away $200 a month on the Cash 5 and Treasure Hunt for small returns but use the same dollars (or more) and go for something bigger.
Dollars are dollars and luck is luck ... maybe we all get a shot at luck sometime but maybe we weren't ready!
I am still churning all this around and the actual amount to spend ... all subject to change in a day or two.
Maybe others have ideas on small jackpot and large jackpot games ... same amount of dollars spent with a chance at a bigger jackpot reward ... maybe no reward with either small and large games!
... oh yes, one other thing to mention ... I have started playing numbers more than once ... maybe when I buy a ticket I will play for 3 to 5 draws ... I have hit the Match 6 and Cash 5 on the 2nd and 3rd draw ... didn't win nothing with the numbers on the first draw. I think it's better to give the numbers some extra chances ... just my opinion.
GLTA
CW