Americans spend about $70 billion playing the lottery every year.
The majority of them don’t end up winning any money in return. But that doesn’t put a damper on the dreams of those who hope they’ll be lucky enough to win the lottery one day.
Do you devote some of your monthly income to playing the lottery? If so, you should take steps to increase your chances of winning the lottery. There are all kinds of lotto strategies that you can use to put yourself in a position to win.
Check out eight lotto strategies that you should put to the test the next time you plop down money for a lottery ticket.
1. Play State Lottery Games as Opposed to National Ones
We hate to break this to you, but there’s a good chance that you’re not ever going to win the Powerball or Mega Millions lotteries. These lottery games offer odds in the 1 in 300 million range since people from all across the country take part in them.
Rather than playing these kinds of national lottery games, why not play one that’s a little closer to home? Your state likely has lottery games that offer way better odds than the ones offered by the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries.
In Pennsylvania, for instance, people can play the Cash 5 lottery. It offers 1 in 960,000 odds. Those are still really long odds when you think about it, but you’re a whole lot more likely to win the Cash 5 lottery than you are the Powerball or Mega Millions lotteries.
State lotteries don’t offer payouts that are anywhere close to the payouts offered by national ones. But you can still bring home life-changing money if you’re able to beat the odds and win a state lottery.
2. Buy Lottery Tickets in Bulk With Friends
You only need to have one lottery ticket to win the lottery. But if you have more than one ticket, it’s going to increase your chances of winning exponentially.
If you enjoy playing the lottery, you should try to find people around you who like playing it just as much and pool your money together with them to buy tickets. You can play the lottery with family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and more.
The more lottery tickets that you buy in the days leading up to a lottery drawing, the greater your chances of winning some kind of prize. Even if you don’t take home the top prize, you might be able to win a lesser prize that will allow you and your fellow lottery players to earn some money on your lottery tickets.
3. See If Your Lottery Tickets Offer Second-Chance Games
Once people see that they don’t have the winning lottery numbers at the end of a drawing, they’ll often crumple their lottery tickets up and throw them away. Don’t do this!
Many lottery tickets offer players the chance to take part in second-chance games. You aren’t going to win millions of dollars during these games. But you could be rewarded for making the most of your ticket and playing second-chance games.
Read everything on your lottery ticket to see if it offers second-chance prizes. You might be surprised to see that what you thought was a losing ticket is actually a big winner.
4. Use the Right Lotto Strategies for Selecting Lottery Ticket Numbers
People use all kinds of wacky lotto strategies when they’re in the process of picking the lottery numbers they want to play. They’ll use their family members’ birthdays, their favorite athletes’ jersey numbers, and even just their favorite numbers to fill out their lottery ticket.
At the end of the day, you should pick whichever numbers you feel the most comfortable with. But you should also implement a few tried-and-true lotto strategies when it comes to selecting lotto numbers. These strategies include:
- Steering clear of choosing lotto numbers that sit right next to one another
- Picking lotto numbers over 31 to avoid matching numbers with those playing their loved ones’ birthdays
- Choosing at least some of the most common lotto numbers that tend to come out a lot
One thing that you should definitely not do is allow the lottery ticket machine to pick numbers for you. Experts will tell you that this is an almost surefire way to end up with numbers that you don’t want.
5. Make Sure You’re Having Fun Playing the Lottery at All Times
Before you pay any money to play the lottery, you should accept the fact that you’re probably not going to win. The odds are so astronomical that you shouldn’t bank on winning anytime soon.
But that doesn’t need to stop you from having fun. One of the best parts of playing the lottery is sitting around and daydreaming about what you would do with all your money if you won. It’s fun talking about this with other people, too.
If you, at any point, find that this part of playing the lottery isn’t exciting anymore, you should reconsider your decision to play it in the first place. Playing the lottery should be a fun experience, not one that frustrates and annoys you.
As long as you continue to enjoy yourself, dropping $10 or so on lottery tickets every week will be worth the expense.
Use These Lotto Strategies to Improve Your Odds of Winning
There is no way to guarantee that you’ll win the lottery on any given day. You can use all the lotto strategies found here and still not hit a single number on a lottery ticket.
But if you use these tips over time, you should start to enjoy more success before long. If nothing else, you’ll feel like you have a better chance to win every time you play the lottery, and it’ll enhance your experience overall.
Want to get some ideas as far as what you can do with all your money if you ever happen to win the lottery? Check out our blog to get all kinds of great money-related advice.
