Reminder: We do not buy lottery tickets or send players money

During the past month or so, we noticed that an enthusiastic player from Australia was obtaining our Lottery Power Picks for various lottery games. Since we do not cover the Australian lotteries, we were curious as to why this member would be interested in the US Hot Lotto, Irish Lotto, Euro Millions and other games.

This weekend we learned why. For some reason, this player did not read through our site and learn that they must purchase their own lottery tickets for individual drawings in order to be eligible to win prizes.

Instead, they misunderstood our research offerings and believed that we would simply send them money if they had a winning combination. (Ah, free money. Everyone would like to have that).

As luck would have it, this player obtained several winning combinations for the above lotteries. However, they did not purchase lottery tickets for the individual games, and thus, all potential winnings were only on paper (i.e. fantasy lottery winnings).

Additionally, the person believed that we would simply send them money for their efforts. Thus, they sent us a note providing us with their address and asked us to send them a check.

Unfortunately for them, Lottery Power Picks is in the information dissemination business only. We research various lottery games and offer our advice to players.

Here in the United States, it is illegal: to operate a lottery (for free, money, or prizes); or, to purchase lottery tickets for others. Thus, all of our members who obtain recommended lottery numbers from us must purchase their own lottery tickets directly from an authorized lottery agent in the various states, countries, or territories. For good reason, we do NOT provide any of these services.

Additionally, we do NOT charge players for our services nor do we expect players to send us a commission if they are lucky enough to win.

The only thing that we ask of our winning players in return for our free advice is to tell everyone that they "got their numbers from Lottery Power Picks". (Although, donations are genuinely appreciated).

68 Match 5 Mega Millions winners but the 21 in California get low pari-mutuel payouts

What seems to be a record number of the 2nd place Mega Millions winners in the March 20, 2012 drawing illustrates two important lottery oddities.

First, we find that a total there was a total of 68 winners who matched the 5 white balls and won the second tier prize. The white ball numbers drawn were: 01 04 06 11 14. These are classified as "Birthday" numbers because they can all be made from the numbers of the month and the day of month.

In choosing numbers to play, many people use important dates as their numbers.  While we do not know if the majority of winners picked their own numbers, we suspect that they did. This would certainly account for the large amount of winners. However, if most of the winning tickets were generated as Quick Picks, we would have to question the random number generator being used. Most likely though, most of the winners  played their favorite numbers and not quick picks.

Looking at the increase in the annuity jackpot prize by $49 million, we can also estimate that there were approximately 98 to 100 million tickets were sold. Given that number, we would expect to have 25 to 26 match 5 winners. But, since we have 2.6 times that amount, the Birthday Number Theory provides a sound explanation.

The low prize payout to the 21 California winners highlights the second oddity which is because of pari-mutuel payouts in that State. Normally, a Mega Millions match 5 winner without the Megaplier Option would receive $250,000.  But, California pays out the Mega Millions prizes on a pari-mutuel basis (not a fixed prize level). This means that the payout fluctuates depending on the number of winners. The fewer the winners, the higher the prize; and, the more the winners, the lower the prize.

Because of this, the California winners will receive $56,382 each, almost 5 times less than the 47 winners in the other States.  

When multiplying the $56K times the 21 winners, it appears that California expected to see 4 to 5 winners in this tier that would have won $250,000. But because there were 21 winners, they all had to share the allocated prize amount equally which substantially reduced their earnings.

We can learn 2 things from these results:

• First, many people play their birthday numbers which are often duplicates,
• Second, try not to buy tickets in California if you live on a border state where the payouts are fixed.

Lastly, we wish to congratulate all of last night's Mega Millions winners on a job well done!

7 West Virginia Powerball Powerplay tickets win $14 million on one Feb 29th leap year day

The new Powerball lottery advertises more "more millionaires" and last night, they paid off in West Virginia.

In the Wednesday, February 29th leap year drawing, seven individual Powerball Powerplay tickets matched the 5 white balls and won $2 million each.

The white numbers drawn were:

01 04 11 23 26.

We classify these as birthday numbers because they can be simply chosen from a combination of month and day digits only.

Uniquely, all 7 of the winning $2M Powerplay tickets were sold in the one state of West Virginia.  We don't know if these were purchased by:

• one individual (or group),
• multiple players,
• selected at random by Quick Pick, or
• chosen from one's birthday or anniversary date.

But, we do know that the choice of spending the extra $1 for the Powerplay option was a very wise decision.

In addition to these 7 tickets, four other tickets spattered across the country matched this combination as well. However, the winning tickets sold in Colorado, Iowa, Illinois and Texas did not contain the Powerplay option and only paid out $1 million to each of the owners.

We congratulate all the winners and would love to know how these winning numbers were chosen and who won or split the $14 million payout in WV.

Lotto 649 Draws All Hot Numbers

For the first time since we first introduced our Hot Cold Analysis pages in July 2009, the Canadian Lotto 649 game drew all hot numbers on Saturday, July 9, 2011. Not only were the 6 white balls classified as hot, but a hot bonus ball was drawn as well.  For that drawing, we identified 10 white balls as being hot and 7 hot bonus balls.

• Hot white numbers:  04, 07, 15, 23, 27, 31, 33, 36, 45, 48
• Hot bonus numbers: 05, 08, 22, 25, 29, 37, 39

If someone or group had played our hot white numbers, they would have purchased 210 total combinations. This would have cost C$420 and the lucky players would have collected the C$32 million jackpot prize. 


Since nobody won that night, the jackpot has increased to C$40 for Wednesday night.

Other games that previously selected our hot numbers were: California Super Lotto Plus, and Mega Millions (twice)!

Two Lotto 649 Players Share C$41M Prize Matching Sleeper Combination

It's not too often that the Lotto 649 jackpot grows to C$41 million and is then won by a sleeper. But that's exactly what happened in the Saturday February 19th 2011 drawing.

The excitement ran through Canada as nobody won a 649 jackpot since January 22nd. In this 8th drawing since that date, or 4 weeks later, the numbers began to pop up. When it was done, the all even combination of:

10 16 20 26 34 48  and bonus ball 40

appeared. Surprisingly, two tickets from Quebec matched this straight 6 number draw, and now each one shares half of the C$41M.

The last two times all 6 numbers were even in this lottery were on October 16 and March 10 2010, but jackpot was not won either time.  As a reference, there are only 134,596 all even combinations in Lotto 649. This represents only 1% of all the available 13,983,816 numbers. So, this is indeed a sleeper combination!

Congratulations to the winners!

Valentine's Weekend Drawings Reward Hot Lotto & 649 Players

In the weekend immediately before Valentines Day, our Lottery Power Picks brought early gifts to players in three different games.

On Saturday night, a Hot Lotto player won $50 by matching 3 of the 5 white balls plus the Hot Ball. In that drawing, we gave out only 160 combinations. Had more players requested numbers, two additional winning tickets would have been redeemed. Within the next 100 combos, there were two 4 of 5 winning tickets worth $50 each.

Also on Saturday, one Canadian Lotto 649 player matched 4 of 6 white balls and won C$62.60. Similar to the Hot Lotto numbers, we recommended 160 combos. In the next 100 combination batch, there were two more 4 of 6 matching tickets as well.

Lastly, one of our Euro Millions members won €23.20 in the Friday night drawing. That ticket matched 3 of the 5 white balls plus 1 of the 2 lucky stars.

Congratulations to all our lucky members and thanks for playing!

Two More Power Picks Winners Last Friday Night

Friday December 10th was a lucky night for two of our Lottery Power Picks members.

First, one Mega Millions player won $150 by matching 3 of the 5 white balls and the Megaball.

Second, a Lotto Max player matched 5 of the 7 white balls and won C$122.20 that same night.

Congratulations to both our members and have a Merry Christmas!

JL.......

A Good Weekend for Lottery Power Picks Players

During this last weekend of November 2010, two of our LPP players enjoyed finding out that they were winners.  First, one Mega Millions player matched 3 white balls plus the Megaball and won $150 on Friday November 26th.

Then, on Saturday the 27th, a Canadian Lotto 649 player matched 4 of the 6 white balls and won C$64.40.

As this holiday season begins, we congratulate both lucky players in the North American continent!

How to Win a Little Bit of Money in the Lottery

Our current development effort has been focused on calculating the amount of money a lottery player would win if they were to use a wheeling strategy. For those who wonder, a lottery wheel refers to playing all the possible combinations using a small subset of numbers. For example, if you select 7 numbers to be wheeled in a 5 number game, there would be 42 possible combinations.

Similarily, we can also utilize a varying amout of bonus balls (Mega Balls, Powerballs, Hot Balls) in our wheel. Supposing that you wish to wheel 5 bonus balls with the above example, there would be a grand total of 42 times 5 or 210 total combinations to be played.

However, we believe that spending $210 on a single drawing is a lot of money. So we wanted to see what would happen if we simply select 5 white ball numbers and wheeled the bonus balls only. The problem we encountered was : What five balls and bonus balls should we play?

For this, we decided to: select the first 5 white balls listed in our Hot and Cold Analysis, and obtain the bonus balls from the Hot Cold analysis as well. Then we applied this strategy to the Mega Millions, Powerball, and Hot Lotto games and reviewed the past 6 months drawings (26 total) to see is we won anything.  This is what we found:

• For Mega Millions, we used the white balls ( 2, 4, 10, 13, 20 ), and the Megaballs ( 9, 13, 18, 19, 25, 26, 31, 36, 41 ). This means we spent $9 in each game or $234 total. We would have had 3 ( 3-white + MB ) and 7 ( 1-white + MB ) winners, returning $660 back to us. Deducting the $234 that we spent, we would have profited $426.
• For Powerball, we used the white balls ( 7, 10, 16, 17, 20  ), and the Megaballs ( 13, 15, 20, 27, 30, 34, 39 ). This means we spent $7 in each game or $182 total. We would have had 1 ( 3-white + PB ),  1 ( 2-white + PB ),  5 ( 1-white + PB ), and 4 (  PB only ) winners, returning $181 back to us. Deducting the $182 that we spent, we would have lost $1.
•  For Hot Lotto, we used the white balls ( 1, 13, 14, 15, 26  ), and the Hot Balls ( 4, 6, 7, 15, 17 ). This means we spent $5 in each game or $130 total. We would have had 2 ( 3-white + HB ),  2 ( 2-white + HB ),  3 ( 1-white + HB ), and 5 (  HB only ) winners, returning $155 back to us. Deducting the $130 that we spent, we would have profited $25.

As you can see, we would have earned a profit on both Mega Millions and Hot Lotto, and would have lost only one dollar on Powerball.

Since each of these games allows us to buy a multiplier, we recommend that this be done in all cases. If we did, the Powerball would have returned a profit of approximately $179, Mega Millions $1,512 profit, and Hot Lotto $205 profit.

Three Lotto Max and Hot Lotto Winning Tickets

This past weekend's lottery drawings produced three very good winning tickets for our players.

First, on Friday October 22nd, one Lotto Max combination matched 5 of the 7 drawn white balls. The prize for that ticket brought C$121.50 back to our ticket holder.

Then, on Saturday October 23rd, two of our Hot Lotto combinations won prizes in that drawing. One ticket match 3 white balls and the Hot Ball, winning $50. The second ticket returned $500 as it matched 4 white balls and the Hot Ball.

Congratulations to those who held the three Lotto Max and Hot Lotto Winning Tickets!

Pick 3 Performance Review

It's been 20 weeks since we first introduced our NC, NJ, and TX Pick 3 pages (May 3rd). Since that time, twelve of our "Way Overdue" delta recommendations have have won in straight combination payouts. The breakdown for each State is:

• North Carolina: 3 winners (one in June, 1 in July, 1 in August)
• New Jersey: 2 winners (2 in September)
• Texas: 7 winners (1 in June, 3 in July, 1 in August, 1 in September)

We believe this Pick 3 Performance Review supports our belief that that all numbers will eventually be selected, and that playing overdue numbers will pay out profits to the patient lottery player.

North Carolina's Record Pick 3 Payout

As written in its Carolina Pick 3 Record Payout press release, the NC Lottery paid out a record $2,880,000 to 11,520 Pick 3 players who correctly matched the evening number 2 - 2  - 2 on Monday September 6th.

This broke the previous record payout of $2,283,000 for the December 25 2009 evening number 5 - 5 - 5 to 9,132 winners.

By comparison the number 3 - 3 - 3 was later drawn in the Wednesday September 8th daytime drawing, but only 4,947 winners collected $1,236,750 in prizes.

Looking at two other dates when triples were drawn, we find that the number:

• 5 - 5 - 5 on Jan 27 2010 evening drawing paid 3,555 winners $888,570
• 6 - 6 - 6 on Jul 31 2010 daytime drawing paid  2,729 winners $682,250

Looking at these statistics, it doesn't appear that players consistently choose triple numbers in every drawing.

However, playing triples in the North Carolina Pick 3 can definitely benefit those players because the State pays out a fixed $250 per winning ticket.

Some Girls Have All the Luck

According to a number of sources, Joan Ginther, originally from Bishop Texas, has won her 4th multi-million dollar lottery prize!

Beginning in 1993, she won a Lotto Texas $5.4 million prize. Then about 13 years later, she won another $2.0 million scratch-off jackpot. Soon after in 2008, Ms Ginther landed a winning $3.0 million scratch-off ticket.

And, just recently in 2010, she claimed one of the top $10 million prizes offered in the Texas Lottery's $140 million Extreme Payout game.

While many of us complain that we can't even win a $2 Mega Millions or $3 Powerball prize, this one lucky woman has shot for the stars and reaped the rewards.

Multiple of 5 Wins Powerball Jackpot

I've been thinking a lot recently about playing numbers which are all multipliers of a single digit: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 because the subset of combinations is relatively small. Then, like magic, one lucky Powerball player in Wisconsin won a $31.4 jackpot on Wednesday October 14th 2009 by matching the:

Crazy Combo

White Balls: 05 15 25 30 40
and Powerball: 06
 

Looking at the white balls, it is easy to see that each is a multiple of 5! To match the white ball set in the Powerball game, a player must correctly pick 5 of 59 number. There are a total of 5,006,3896 white ball combinations.

But, if a player limits his selections to only those numbers that are divisible by 5, then there are only 11 numbers to pick from, and only 462 combinations. If a player (or office pool) choose this strategy to simply match the white balls, they would be risking $462 to win $200,000 minimum. And, if he played all Powerball numbers, the player could even win the Jackpot!

We're not sure if our recent Powerball winner used this strategy to win the Jackpot, but it's clear that if you play small subsets of numbers, you really can win the Lottery!

JL.............

Lucky Lottery Power Picks Player Matchs 5 of 6 White Balls

In the Wednesday, September 23 2009, Canadian Lotto 649 drawing, one of our lucky player's combinations matched 5 of the 6 white balls selected that night. The player won the 3rd place prize and received C$1,429.90. There were only 142 winners in that tier.

The winning numbers in that drawing were:

04 08 11 12 34 43 and Bonus 22

Below is a partial screen shot of the winning combination. Notice that this combination was located at #148 of our recommended numbers. Altogether, we gave out 184 combinations that night.




While we have no way of knowing whether the player actually played their combinations, we wish to extend our congratulations to that lucky winner. Thanks for using LPP and we hope you will tell all your friends as well.

As you can see, Lottery Power Picks does actually work and players really do have a chance to win!

JL.....

LPP Rewards 2 Canadian Lotto 649 Players with Winning Combinations

Two of our Canadian Lotto 649 players received combinations that matched 4 of the 6 white balls in the Saturday August 8 2009 drawing. In that drawing, Lottery Power Picks recommended only 141 combinations. Of those, there were two C$5 winners (2 white + bonus), two C$10 winners (3 white), and two 4 of 6 winners collecting C$71.20 each.

What makes this special for us is that the chances of winning a 4 of 6 prize is 1 in 1,033. To have 2 winners in only 141 combinations is remarkable!

Congratulations to holders of both our tickets and we hope you continue to get your numbers from Lottery Power Picks!

Three More 4th Place LPP Lottery Winners

During the 2 weeks that we were away, 3 of our players won 4th place prizes.

In the Canadian Lotto 649, two winners matched 4 of the 6 white balls,
and, in Mega Millions, one player matched 4 of the 5 white balls.

We congratulate all of our lucky players and hope you continue to play your Free Lottery Power Picks.

Feb 2009 Canadian Lotto Winners

During the month of February 2009, Lottery Power Picks has seen a large increase in the number of Lotto 649 and Super 7 players. Not surprisingly, we have rewarded these players with remarkable results.

In Lotto 649, a monthly total of 11 tickets matched 4 of the 6 white balls, returning C$754.10 back to the players. In addition, numerous tickets paid back: C$5 by matching 2 white plus the Bonus ball each; and C$10 for matching 3 of the 6 white balls.

For Super 7, a monthly total of 3 tickets matched 5 of the 7 white balls, returning C$303.00 back to the players. In addition, countless: Free tickets were won by matching 3 of the 7 white balls; as well as C$10 by matching 4 of the 7 white balls.

We congratulate all of our Canadian Players
and hope you will continue to
rely on us for your unique combinations!

To Our First $10K PB Winner: Congrats!

Every time we see our cousin Suzie, she asks:

"So, Has anyone ever won anything big with your website?"

After this past Saturday's Powerball drawing, we can proudly answer:

"Yes - $10,000"!

In the Saturday, February 28th 2009 drawing, Lottery Power Picks recommended 2,376 combinations, and we had 4 major winners:

• One person won $10,000 matching 4 of the 5 white balls plus the Powerball (chances are 1 in 723,145),
• One person won $100 matching 4 of the 5 white balls (chances are 1 in 14,254), and
• Two more tickets each won $100 matching 3 of the 5 white balls plus the Powerball (chances are 1 in 11,927)!

Considering that the chances of winning any one of these prizes is so high, we know that recommending 4 winning combinations in less than 2,400 has indeed surpassed the odds.

Congratulations to all our lucky players.

We hope you played your Free Power Picks and will tell everyone to visit our site. As we've always been saying: If we can't win, maybe someone else will. And, in exactly 30 months, our prediction came true. We hope that learning of our first major winner gives you all inspiration and the confidence to to keep playing lotto and getting your numbers from us!

JL...........