How to Pick a Winning Lottery Ticket: 7 Expert Tips

The chances of you winning the lottery are…not great. You’re way more likely to get struck by lightning or get eaten by a shark than you are to pick the right lottery numbers on any given day.

But as they say, someone has to win the lottery, right? So if you’re feeling a little bit lucky today, why not try and buy a winning lottery ticket?

Why not test out some tips that might actually improve your chances of winning the lottery, too? Here are seven expert tips that will increase the odds of you landing a winning lottery ticket.

1. Play the Right Lottery Games

There are some people who are under the impression that there is only one lottery that they can play. But this couldn’t be any further from the truth.

The Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries tend to get most of the media coverage in this country. But there are so many other lotteries that you can play.

Just about all of those lotteries offer way better odds than the big national ones. The odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery, for example, are about 1 in 292 million, while the odds of winning, say, the Pick 6 lottery in New Jersey are about 1 in 14 million.

Yes, those are still long odds. And yes, the Pick 6 lottery pays out a lot less to lottery winners than the Mega Millions lottery does. But something tells us you wouldn’t mind discovering that you had a winning lottery ticket for something like the Pick 6 lottery.

2. Put Together a Pool of People to Buy More Lottery Tickets

The more lottery tickets that you buy in the days leading up to a lottery drawing, the better your chances of striking it rich. Simple math will show you that you can increase your odds of winning substantially by buying up more tickets.

That being said, you should not pay for all these tickets on your own. You’ll end up spending a small fortune on lottery tickets and still having the odds stacked against you.

Rather than purchasing more lottery tickets by yourself, put together a group of people who buy lottery tickets together. Whether you buy them with your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, or another group of people, it’ll help you get your hands on more tickets overall.

3. Stay Away From Picking Consecutive Numbers on Lottery Tickets

Take a look at almost any winning lottery ticket and you’ll quickly notice one thing. More often than not, it won’t feature numbers that sit right next to each other or even in the same number range.

Try to spread your numbers out a little bit so that they fall into different number ranges on your ticket. It’s obviously not impossible for back-to-back numbers to come out, but it’s pretty rare.

4. Choose at Least a Few Numbers Over 31 Whenever Possible

Many people pick their lottery tickets by playing the birthdays of different family members. Some of them have won millions by taking this approach.

If you want to go this route, there’s nothing wrong with doing it. But you should know that you’re more likely to have to split your lottery winnings with someone else if your numbers hit since so many people use birthdays to pick lottery numbers.

You could be better off going with at least a few numbers that are over 31 whenever possible. This will get your numbers out of birthday territory and increase your chances of being the lone lottery winner if your numbers happen to hit.

5. Steer Clear of Selecting the Most Popular Lottery Numbers

If we were to ask you to pick some of the numbers that sit between 1 and 55, what are the first numbers you would say? Numbers like 3, 7, 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, and 50 likely just jumped into your head.

These are some of the most popular lottery numbers. They’re the numbers that people tend to choose when they’re in a hurry and can’t fathom a number like “38” coming out.

Try and work some of the less popular lottery numbers into the mix. Find random numbers that you don’t think other people would pick for their lottery tickets.

6. Look at Which Numbers Have Appeared on Winning Lottery Tickets in the Past

As we mentioned earlier, the odds of a specific group of numbers coming out during a lottery drawing are astronomical.

And the odds of those same numbers coming out again? Well, let’s just say that you should probably start building an underground bunker for the apocalypse if it happens.

With this in mind, you should keep an eye on the most recent lottery results to make sure you don’t buy a ticket with numbers that just came out on it. That ticket is most likely going to be a loser.

7. Find a Reliable Place to Check Lottery Results

Believe it or not, there are more than a few people who have “won” the lottery—only to find out later that they made a mistake when checking their tickets and didn’t win anything at all. It can be a gut-wrenching experience.

Avoid making this mistake by finding a reliable place online to check all lotto results. It’ll ensure that you know whether or not you have a winning lottery ticket in your hand when you check your numbers.

Go Buy a Winning Lottery Ticket Today

You can follow all the tips listed here and still not come anywhere close to winning the lottery. Most people don’t ever get to experience what it’s like to win a life-changing amount of money.

But if nothing else, using these tips will give your odds of landing a winning lottery ticket a slight boost. They’ll also make playing the lottery even more fun than it already is.

Put these tips to the test the next time you’re standing in line waiting to buy lottery tickets. You’ll feel better about your chances of winning the lottery when you do.

Check out our blog for more interesting articles on playing the lottery and taking part in other games of chance.