... your chances of winning a lottery jackpot is to buy more tickets. And, as Pete said, all that really does is increase your number of losing tickets!

Furthermore, strictly in terms of the probability of winning, it doesn't matter a damn which numbers you pick (unless, of course, you put the same ones on every ticket! ).

It IS true, however, that you can improve your chances of not having to share a jackpot with other winners. For example, when California still had the six number lotto, literally hundreds (or maybe it was thousands, I can't remember now) of people would pick the combinations 1-2-3-4-5-6 and 7-14-21-28-35-42. Now, with the five +Mega number system, there are probably comparable picks (such as 1-2-3-4-5 +6 and 7-14-21-28-35 +7).

When the lotto first started here, they ran print ads with the lotto numbers of famous people. I think it was one of the of the Apple guys (Jobs or Wozniak) who said he picked 1-2-3-4-5-6. The ad had the headline, "Don't laugh, my numbers are just as likely to win as yours." Entirely true. But, such a jackpot would be VERY small after being divided hundreds or thousands of ways.

Many people use birthdates and ages of their children to pick their numbers. So, the numbers 1-31 are played disproportionately often. Therefore, you can reduce the probability that a winning ticket will be shared by picking the higher numbers. Doesn't improve your chances of winning to begin with, just reduces the likelihood that someone else will also have a winning ticket.

----- jim o\-S