The odds are not in your favor when it comes to winning the Powerball’s staggering $1.3 billion jackpot on Wednesday night, but there are a few things you can to tip the scales ever-so-slightly in your favor, according to mathematicians.
When the odds of winning the Powerball are just 1 in 292.2 million, it may seem like all a player can rely on is pure luck to take the jackpot home.
But abandoning superstition and embracing cold, hard statistics can help improve your chances.
Avoid picking your lucky numbers
When it comes to playing the lottery, people often rely on their lucky numbers — like family birthdays — to fill out their tickets.
Mathematicians, however, are quick to point out that there is no such thing as “lucky numbers” in a random drawing, and relying on the same set of digits not only hurts your chances, but it also increases your odds of sharing the jackpot if you do manage to win.
“Better to pick your numbers or have random numbers,” lottery expert Tim Chartier told the Post.
“The odds of you winning at the same. But, the odds, if you win, of not having to share the winnings is much better if you have entirely random numbers,” the Davidson University mathematician added.
Buy more tickets
Improving your odds is also as simple as buying more tickets. Every additional ticket increases your chances.
But the odds are still stacked against you. Buying even 1 million tickets (at a cost of $2 million) would still leave you at less than a 1 in 292 chance of winning.
Chartier said winning the lottery with a single ticket is like two people trying to pick out the same second over the last 9.2 years.
“If I pick 1 second in the last 9.2 years, having 100 guesses helps, but it’s still VERY unlikely,” he explained.
Don’t think numbers can’t repeat themselves
In a game of random chance, people tend to try to find a pattern to inform their decision and boost their odds of winning.
This can often backfire, Chartier pointed out, noting that the numbers for the Powerball are always random, meaning it’s not impossible for numbers that appeared on Monday to make a return on Wednesday night.
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“The final number on the last draw was five,” Chartier pointed out. “Remember, the numbers are picked at random. So, 5 is still as likely as it ever was.”
Picking ‘weird’ combinations could be a mistake
Oftentimes, lottery players think they’re clever enough to outsmart others by picking out strange number combinations that they believe no one else will, increasing their odds of taking home the jackpot all to themselves.
Surely no one will pick 1,2,3,4,5, right?
“That sequence – 1,2,3,4,5 – is actually more popular than you might think,” probability expert David Hodge told The Sun.
“If you think something is a weird combination, it’s likely that other people will think it’s weird too, and will likely pick that combination too,” the University of Glasgow lecturer added.
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