Succeed in Lotto Even if You Don't Know Where to Start!

Economics professor Gerald Willmann of Stanford University explains that Moses was the first known to use a lottery to distribute land as lots. Read his article “The History of Lotteries” from 1999 for more.  The term is still used in real estate to designate a parcel of land.  

The lottery fell out of favor and was abolished by November of 1793 in the aftermath of the French revolution. But the demand to play did not fall and players bought tickets in foreign lotteries such as that of nearby Cologne in Germany.  

The first German lottery was held in 1470 in Augsberg.  Then came one in Strasburg (1473), Erfurt (1477), Gemünden in 1480, and various in Nürmberg in 1487. Frankfurt on Main held a lottery in 1506 and another in Osnabrück in 1521.

Finance Professor Richard Thaler of University of Chicago Booth and Bill Ziemba of the University of British Columbia published a useful article that helps explain why people play lottery — a game that returns 50 cents on the dollar at best. They discuss the strategy of playing “against the crowd” in lotto. 

Between 15 and 20 of the numbers are unpopular.  Professor Ziemba explains that lotto players frequently pick “lucky” numbers.  

Thaler and Ziemba ask the question, does it ever pay to buy all the numbers and hence “steal the pot”? This would only be profitable if there is a large carryover such as $7.7 million on a 6/49 lotto game where few tickets are sold. 

Flash forward twenty-three years to 2011. Professors Rose Baker and Ian McHale published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society entitled “Investigating the behavioural characteristics of lottery players by using a combination preference model for conscious selection.” You can tell it is British.  

The pari-mutuel gambling game of Lotto is one of long odds and large jackpots as explained by economics professors Philip Cook and Charles Clotfelter of Duke University in the top ranked American Economic Review. This is by far the most prestigious academic study of lottery in print. 

As the jackpot expands and the likelihood of sharing the jackpot rises. But the likelihood of sharing rises slower than the jackpot size as new players buy into the game.  

The article I last explained from the American Economic Review by Cook and Clotfelter (1993) points out a very dangerous inclination, “Many players do not accept the scientific view of chance but rather believe that the probability of choosing a winning combination in a lottery game can be improved though the application of skill and effort.  This belief is evidenced by the active market in advice for choosing lottery numbers, offering everything from numerology texts to news articles that explain what system the latest winner was using.”

This section delves deep into exploring this very real problem through a book by Samuel G. Allen entitled “A Player’s Guide to Lotto Strategies.” 

The hardest task I ever set myself to in my life was my doctoral dissertation in market microstructure of the grain futures markets trading across the CBOT.  The academic researcher whom I hold in the highest regard in lottery research is Iliya Bluskov.  Iliya struggled through a Ph.D. in mathematics working to perfect the optimal lottery wheel.  

The main intent behind this system is to make your lotto play more fun.  Bluskov wheeling allows you to involve other members of your circle of family and friends.

Instead of quilting you can invest the same amount of time and money to creating and running a lottery syndicate.  You would do this using the 126 systems in the book by Bluskov. 

Bluskov shows you your expected returns through nifty win tables. Lotto is a very large but closed system of number combinations.  The table for each Bluskov system includes a table that gives the distribution of wins in all possible draws.  Bluskov systems are well balanced in that almost all the numbers you choose will be nearly equally represented.  

You can’t incorporate a lottery pool because it is a hobby not a business.  And you can only deduct losses up to winnings.