Do you use a system for choosing your lottery numbers? If so, are you aware that using such a system might actually reduce your chances of landing a big win? The only way to genuinely boost your probability of winning the lottery is to buy more entries – and don’t let anyone tell you differently, it’s just a matter of statistics. In contrast, there are actually some steps you could take to make sure that, within the event that you need to do win, you are more more likely to win a larger amount. Let’s use the UK lottery being an example. Every week that there is a jackpot winner it seems that the prize is shared among a amount of people. Therefore, the best way to maximise your winnings in the event that your numbers are chosen is to minimise the number of individuals you will need to share the prize money with. Although you can find no guarantees in a game of chance such as a lottery, there are actually several ways by which this might be done.

First off, it’s surprising how many people use dates to select their numbers. It can make it easier for them to remember if they want to play the same numbers every week and they can also attach feelings of good luck to certain dates, for example birthdays, anniversaries etc. Therefore the “date numbers”, 1 to 31, are picked more frequently. So make certain that you have at least 2 or 3 numbers outside of this range.

Don’t pick numbers that have recently been drawn. A lot of men and women believe in “hot streaks” and will be selecting these.

Do not pick numbers according to an arithmetic sequence e.g. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 or 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24. This is an extremely common practice and you may wind up sharing your jackpot with a lot of mathematics teachers!

Do not pick numbers which form a pattern on the entry slip, e.g. a cross or a box. Again this technique is more widely used than you could imagine and you might have to discuss your prize with a lot of individuals.

Do not work with a tips service to select your numbers. It doesn’t matter whether the service is based on some advanced statistical analysis, alexistogel the total amount of ink on each ball or perhaps the dream visions of some spaced out hippy, you will not be the only person using it and so you’ll be guaranteed to wind up splitting your winnings with a whole bunch of other winners.

The very best way to pick your numbers is at random. You can draw them out of a hat or use one of a number of random generators that are available online for just that purpose. This will not increase your probability of winning – but at least should you win you’ll be a lot less likely to have to talk about your loot with a couple of dozen other “lucky” punters.