Despite all the complaining about recent changes to the Mega Millions game, the number of players hasn't decreased very much, at least, not in Texas.
Apparently, lot of players still believe that, regardless of the odds, they can win a significant prize.
FWIW - count me in as a lottery systems player who believes hitting 5/5 for a million dollars is worth the time and effort on a limited basis, or, only on Friday.
Tracking and analyzing 70 numbers, plus 25 bonus numbers, is a challenge but I believe my substitution-based strategy can handle it, or, maybe not. Only time and money will tell, as it's said.
The most important aspect in any quest to win a lottery prize is cost.
Unfortunately, the jackpot games are designed to minimize prize outs.
A couple of quick picks just won't do, although it's possible a lucky person in the right place at the right time could win it all with a $2 ticket.
IMHO - the more opportunities one has in the game the more likely there will be a happy ending.
With this in mind, I believe a good investment means buying at least 9 tickets, or $18 per drawing.
Nine tickets provides a reasonable chance of winning a prize of some amount, if a reasonable tracking method is used to select numbers to play.
We can't know in advance which 5 numbers will exit the drawing machine, therefore, the 45 numbers need to be balanced, which can be achieved by choosing and wheeling 3 numbers from each of the 7 decades in the MM game.
There aren't many abbreviated wheeling systems that will convert 21 numbers into 9 combinations. I use The Lucky Gene and ignore the guarantee.
The number 70 complicates matters but it can be inserted in at least one of the 9 combinations.
We also can't know in advance which Mega ball will come out of it's mixing machine.
I doubt many folks would spend $50 to cover all Mega Ball possibilities.
The challenge is selecting 9 Mega Balls that includes one having the best chance of matching the winner.
Now comes the really hard part.
Which commercial or home-grown lottery tracking methods are up to the task of choosing 21 'white' numbers and and 9 'red' numbers that have the best chance of being in the winning combination.
It's a 'to each his own' situation.
Personally, I believe the substitution workouts that I use will get me into the ballpark.
No, I'm not going to provide any details because I would need to post a lot of explanatory charts and I don't know how to do that.
I will say that I divide the 25 Mega numbers into 4 groups:
1-5; 6-13, 14-20, 21-25.
I have a tracking method that identifies which group might contain a matching number for the next drawing.
Thanks for your interest and good luck!!