Yesterday afternoon I sat down, and selected 18 out of the 36 FF5 numbers I wanted to play, and then off I went to a Publix near me and I bought ten lines. Because I won $9.50 (and 5 Free Tickets) in Saturday nights draw, I gave the clerk my winning three-bagger ticket, two quarters and my betslip. So I was almost playing for free.
If you're wondering why I pick 18 numbers to play, it's because doing that reduces the number of possible combinations from 376,992 to 8,568. (18 FF5 numbers can make a total 8,568 different five number combos) Of course to win a jackpot, all five winning numbers must be included in the set of 18 numbers I choose. If just one wining number isn't in my chosen set of 18, then it's impossible for me to win a jackpot. The best I could win would be a four-bagger.
This morning, I checked my ten line ticket. There was not ONE single winning number on that ticket!! You'd think that out of the 50 numbers printed on that ticket there'd be at least one winning number, but nope, there were absolutely NONE! That's because the in set of 18 that I chose, #10, #19, #20, #22, & #26 (last nights winning FF5 numbers) were not in my selected set of 18 numbers. When I was choosing which 18 numbers I wanted to play, I COMPLETELY IGNORED #10,#19,#20,#22 & #26.
Man! Talk about going from hot to cold in the blink of an eye......
But there are reasons for it. First, I went heavy on a repeater being drawn last night as there had not been a repeater drawn in six consecutive drawings. It's now been seven consecutive drawings that a repeater has not appeared, so normally I would say that it's a good idea to play repeaters tonight, but I said that yesterday too!. I excluded #10, #19, & #20 because they haven't been drawn a lot this year, and #'s 22 and 26 had not been drawn in the last four draws. Remember when I went nuts over 5FTL4? It was February 2nd when we last saw 5FTL4.
Yesterday The Mrs G5 mentioned to me that I had gotten very hot with my picks lately after "doing so lousy for quite a while". "Who you tellin'?" was my response to her observation, but I also said to her that type of thing has happened to me quite a few times over the many years I've been playing.
This is why I love to play the lottery. I absolutely love having my emotions whipsawed all over the joint by The Lottery Gods. G5