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rundown99

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Nov 30, 2022, 4:17 pm

I am trying to decide whether to play 5 tickets for $10 every drawing for Powerball and Mega Millions or just play $100 once every two weeks. If I play 5 tickets every drawing, at least I would have a chance each time. But if I play 50 tickets (25 tickets for Powerball and 25 tickets for Mega Millions) for $100 once every two weeks, I would have significantly more chances on that particular drawing.

Smart lottery winners form trust to claim their winnings. They send an attorney to the lottery headquarters to claim the prize in trust, so that ONLY the name of the trust is revealed. And they tell NO ONE, especially relatives.

If you ever win a lottery and you are single, the only person you should ever marry is someone who was truly in love with you BEFORE you won the jackpot!

People can talk about strategies and gimmicks all they want, but unless your ticket actually matches at least 5 of those 6 balls, you are just another person who tried to win a game yet ultimately failed.
Stat$talker

700 light yrs West of Milky Way Galaxy's Center
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Nov 30, 2022, 5:17 pm

Quote: Originally posted by rundown99 on Nov 30, 2022
I am trying to decide whether to play 5 tickets for $10 every drawing for Powerball and Mega Millions or just play $100 once every two weeks. If I play 5 tickets every drawing, at least I would have a chance each time. But if I play 50 tickets (25 tickets for Powerball and 25 tickets for Mega Millions) for $100 once every two weeks, I would have significantly more chances on that particular drawing.

Try 1nce evey 10 monthz..1 month for each hr they held up the unprecedented drawing..
Artist77

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January 16, 2012
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Nov 30, 2022, 5:21 pm

Quote: Originally posted by rundown99 on Nov 30, 2022
I am trying to decide whether to play 5 tickets for $10 every drawing for Powerball and Mega Millions or just play $100 once every two weeks. If I play 5 tickets every drawing, at least I would have a chance each time. But if I play 50 tickets (25 tickets for Powerball and 25 tickets for Mega Millions) for $100 once every two weeks, I would have significantly more chances on that particular drawing.

Trusts are not an option in some states. And state law may still require revealing the name behind the trust. Your attorney will still likely have to provide your name to lottery officials at least for verification purposes. See the thread pinned to the top of the jackpot forum.

That is a lot of money to spend on the lottery. Play around with the numbers and pick your own numbers and buy one ticket per drawing.
Stack47

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Nov 30, 2022, 6:22 pm

Quote: Originally posted by rundown99 on Nov 30, 2022
I am trying to decide whether to play 5 tickets for $10 every drawing for Powerball and Mega Millions or just play $100 once every two weeks. If I play 5 tickets every drawing, at least I would have a chance each time. But if I play 50 tickets (25 tickets for Powerball and 25 tickets for Mega Millions) for $100 once every two weeks, I would have significantly more chances on that particular drawing.

The overall odds of winning something playing PB is 1:24.8671 and 1:24 for MM. Those odds or probabilities apply the same in each of the ten drawings so your 5 tickets are more likely to match nothing than winning a prize. You can use each of the MM bonus numbers twice on 50 tickets and those 2 tickets each is guaranteed to win something and have a 1:12,607,306 chance of winning the jackpot so once every two weeks is probably the better bet.

Might be better to save the $10 for each drawing until ticket sales "looks like the jackpot will be won" and bet it all on that drawing. The $2 ticket price really changed the game..

"When will we ever learn?"
garyo1954

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Nov 30, 2022, 7:32 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Stack47 on Nov 30, 2022
The overall odds of winning something playing PB is 1:24.8671 and 1:24 for MM. Those odds or probabilities apply the same in each of the ten drawings so your 5 tickets are more likely to match nothing than winning a prize. You can use each of the MM bonus numbers twice on 50 tickets and those 2 tickets each is guaranteed to win something and have a 1:12,607,306 chance of winning the jackpot so once every two weeks is probably the better bet.

Might be better to save the $10 for each drawing until ticket sales "looks like the jackpot will be won" and bet it all on that drawing. The $2 ticket price really changed the game..

I agree. To me it depends on why you are playing as well.

If you're playing for fun, it doesn't matter how you play. Take a flyer whenever you want.
If you're intent on winning on a budget it's better to pick and choose your spots since spending in a lump increases the odds of hitting something in that draw. And not being in every draw gives you time to consider options you might otherwise be too hurried to see, too rushed to look for (unless you're buying QPs).

But, in the end, it's the player who has to decide what is in their best interest.

G

I'm probably here unless I'm not.
Dreaming would be a perfectly useless function if it's only purpose was to entertain.
rundown99

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Dec 1, 2022, 3:24 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Stack47 on Nov 30, 2022
The overall odds of winning something playing PB is 1:24.8671 and 1:24 for MM. Those odds or probabilities apply the same in each of the ten drawings so your 5 tickets are more likely to match nothing than winning a prize. You can use each of the MM bonus numbers twice on 50 tickets and those 2 tickets each is guaranteed to win something and have a 1:12,607,306 chance of winning the jackpot so once every two weeks is probably the better bet.

Might be better to save the $10 for each drawing until ticket sales "looks like the jackpot will be won" and bet it all on that drawing. The $2 ticket price really changed the game..

I agree. The ticket price increase to $2 changed everything. I played Lotto America in a neighboring state once every other week because my state doesn't offer that game, the odds were better, the tickets were only $1, and honestly, the neighboring state is an anonymous state. I would have matched 3 white balls and the star ball if I had played last Saturday. But the payout would have only been $20! But for Powerball, I would have won $100 for 3 white balls and the red ball, even when the tickets were only $1. Honestly, if the Powerball and Mega Millions were still $1, I would have played more tickets every other week especially if the payout would be more if I matched at least 3 white balls and the red ball.

Smart lottery winners form trust to claim their winnings. They send an attorney to the lottery headquarters to claim the prize in trust, so that ONLY the name of the trust is revealed. And they tell NO ONE, especially relatives.

If you ever win a lottery and you are single, the only person you should ever marry is someone who was truly in love with you BEFORE you won the jackpot!

People can talk about strategies and gimmicks all they want, but unless your ticket actually matches at least 5 of those 6 balls, you are just another person who tried to win a game yet ultimately failed.
Stack47

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February 14, 2006
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Dec 1, 2022, 11:36 pm

As lottery games go, for ticket price and a chance to win a "nice prize" IMO pick 4 is probably the best game.

MM and PB raised the possible outcomes to over 292 million and doubled their ticket price because it was obvious players wanted bigger jackpots. Now with very few jackpot winners, the players are waiting for bigger jackpots. After all the hype, one ticket wins a billion and the rest of us are lucky if we collect 4 bucks.

"When will we ever learn?"
KY Floyd

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Dec 2, 2022, 1:34 am

With the ridiculously high odds the difference is extremely small, but playing 25 tickets for a single drawing gives you a slightly better chance of winning than playing the same number of tickets over multiple drawings, the trade off is that it's impossible to win the jackpot twice when you only play for one drawing.

The far better reason to play in a single drawing is that you can play for a bigger jackpot. If you don't have a gambling problem and don't need to have that chance for every drawing you shouldn't need to be locked into a rigid two week schedule, either. For every $2600 (the annual cost you're planning on) that players spend the lotteries pay out about $1300, but the extremely low chances of winning one of the big prizes means you should expect to lose at least $2000. You might as well risk that loss for a reward that's more than $50 or $100 million. You won't know ahead of time when the jackpot will reset, but this year PB offered 28 chances to play for an advertised jackpot of $300 million or more. As of now MM has had 26 chances and odds are we'll see another 5 or 6 before the current run gets hit.
Stack47

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Dec 2, 2022, 11:33 pm

There are lots of other lottery games so playing the games with the largest odds against winning might not be the best option. I'm pretty sure scratch-offs games have the highest ticket sales in each state lottery and a $2600 budget won't last a year scratching $10 and $20 tickets.

"When will we ever learn?"

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