That's about all a person can really do ... check the odds and hope for luck. In my area there is an older guy who I see quite often at the self serve lottery machines ... he covers them all at various locations and he spends big bucks on the $20 tickets. I have talked a few times with him ... he stands at the machine scraping, cashing and buying more tickets ... anything with taxes to pay on he sticks in his back left pocket.
After seeing him around at different locations over the last 1 1/2 years ... I say Hi or he says Hi ... he knows I play the machine games ... I don't ask him too many questions but I would like to ... but he's busy working the machine and the tickets.
Just before Christmas I ran into him scraping away at the grocery store where he cashes the big winners ... I just briefly asked how he was doing ... pulled out a pink slip from his back pocket for just cashing in a thousand dollar ticket.
I almost feel he really cleans out the big winners in the $20 tickets ... I have seen him at the customer service counter with many tickets in his back pocket or in his hand to be cashed. I asked him once how big a winner he had hit on and he said he'd won $100,000 in a town about six miles away.
That's really all he does ... makes the rounds and buys $20 tickets ... I'm guessing he stays with a streak of winning tickets until it turns cold and then goes somewhere else ... I know he won the $100,000 about six miles away but I have no idea how large his playing territory is.
I'm sure he has many pink tax slips to deal with at tax time but it's what he does ... he told me in Nov he has no friends although I see him having a smoke and talking to people at the gas station every now and then.
That's his life and he makes his daily rounds looking for the big winner.
... of course I was kidding about getting thrown out of the Casino ... I'm still trying to figure out where to put my dollars, still fill the need to have at least one ticket on all the big games, so I may go back to that approach. Thought I had 2015 all figured out but now I'm changing my play.
CW