By 1995, after a fulfilling service career, my wife and I had decided it was time to move back home and be Floridians again…for many reasons.
As we humans tend to do before moving everything, which by then included our two children, we considered all of the positives which supported ‘making the move’.
Among the many reasons, our rationale also included,
“…And PLUS, Florida now has a LOTTERY!”
“Oh yeah…that’s RIGHT!”
“That’s it…done deal! We’re moving!”
Not that a ‘cherry on top’ was necessary by that time, as we had already decided to move anyway, but, why not?
As we humans also tend to do, the conversation then became about,
“What to do with all that MONEY we’ll surely win!”
Trust me, the list of ‘goodies’ we would be able to afford, and, with money actually left over for more reasonable purposes, or is that purchases, was extensive!
Or is that…expensive?
“What a day for a daydream!”
From the time we crossed the Florida–Georgia line, we became ‘hooked on Lotto’!
“I wasn’t sure this 24 footer was gonna clear the canopy! That was close!”
“Honey, while you’re in there, pick up some lotto tickets!”
“How much are they? What numbers? How does this game work?”
What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros?
“Elif’ino, but Lotto can’t be that complicated!”
From that point forward, we played Lotto with conviction! Our ‘fortune and glory’ was always just the next ticket away!
Ten bucks a week…new numbers every time!
Birth dates, ‘quick picks’, you name it; if it was a number, we played it!
“Hey! We won half of our ten dollars back this week! Woohoo!”
Sound familiar?
There’s GOT to be a better way!
Although the Florida Lottery now has six games that involve drawings, not to mention a multitude of various scratch-off games, for our purposes here, we’ll concentrate on just Lotto in its most basic form. Six numbers.
Ever find yourself in line behind a ‘scratch-off addict’?
“Nope! This one’s no good! Give me another…ummmm…one…of …umm…THOSE!”
“No…not that one… yeah THAT one!”
“Oh puh’leeeze! Ahem…s’cuse me.”
How did it happen?
One Friday evening in 1997, I took my son to a baseball game. Our home team, the ‘Suns’ were playing an Alabama team called the ‘Biscuits’!
That’s what I said too! “Huh?”
But…
Something happened that night that made me look at the Lottery in a whole new light!
“CRACK!” (not that kind)
“It’s going…goiiiing…GONE! HOMERUN!”
Deep Left Field!
Three more times that night…different batters, same area…deep left!
“Daddy, let’s sit over there! I wanna catch a baseball!”
Well, we didn’t move over to deep left and I don’t recall if the Suns won or lost, but an idea was hatched!
If you want to catch a baseball, go where the chances are the best!
“Okay, so how do I relate that to Lotto?”
After much pondering, I had a concept…
I began wondering what numbers, or what kinds of numbers, win with the most frequency.
Where is “Deep Left” in Lotto?
Then, it clicked! I went on-line and found a list of every number that had been drawn since the Florida Lottery’s first drawing in January of 1988!
That was aLOTof numbers…
“Lemme see …9 years times 52 weeks a year equals…a BUNCH!”
My plan was to dissect each number, or group of numbers that had been drawn, and categorize them! Yes, it was a monumental task…
Pencil and paper, no less…and I am by no means a statistician!
But, I felt it would be worth the effort, so I did it!
And it WAS!
At that time, the Florida Lotto drawings consisted of a group of six numbers ranging from ‘01’ to ‘49’. So I began encoding each group by applying a designator to each number:
- S = ‘SINGLE’ (01 – 09)
- T = ‘TEEN’ (10 – 19)
- W = ‘TWENTY’ (20 – 29)
- H = ‘THIRTY’ (30 – 39)
- F = ‘FORTY’ (40 – 49)
As an example, let’s apply the designators to a typical group from a drawing:
01 – 04 – 13 – 26 – 35 – 49
S S T W H F
After days and nearly a whole legal pad, I had a means of identifying each group!
Are ya with me so far?
I then realized there was yet another fact to be learned about each number…
Is it even or odd? And, what is the ratio of ‘even to odd’ per group?
Well, that was simple enough!
‘E’ for ‘Even’ and ‘O’ for ‘Odd’ !
With that applied:
O E O E O O
01 – 04 – 13 – 26 – 35 – 49
S S T W H F
So now, the example group is encoded as:
SSTWHF and the Even to Odd ratio (E/O) is 2:4!
“SSTWHF – 2:4”
Having identified each group, I began the process of tallying the groups to learn which configurations had the most ‘hits’, then the next to the most, and so on.
Of the 151 configurations of groups by the ‘S – T – W – H – F’ criteria,
The undisputed winners, each having been drawn 14 times over the 9 year span, were:
- SSTWHF
- STWHHF
- STWHFF
- STWWHF
(For quick reference, here’s the ‘key’ again):
S = ‘SINGLE’ (01 – 09)
T = ‘TEEN’ (10 – 19)
W = ‘TWENTY’ (20 – 29)
H = ‘THIRTY’ (30 – 39)
F = ‘FORTY’ (40 – 49)
The closest rivals near the top of the chart were:
TWHHFF with 13 ‘hits’,
then,
TTWHHF with 12 hits, STTWHF with 9, and the list declined from there all the way down to 59 groups that had only been drawn once!
As for ‘E/O’ ratios of 9 years worth of numbers:
- 3:3 = 148
- 2:4 = 100
- 4:2 = 98
- 1:5 = 46
- 5:1 = 42
- 6:0 = 6
- 0:6 = 5
Armed with that information, do you think it changed how I configured the groups of numbers I actually played?
“You Betcha!”
I named the system:
E.G.R.S. (Encoded Group and Ratio System)
This system can be applied to virtually any game involving randomly drawn numbers!
Did it work?
As fate would have it, very shortly after I devised this system, something changed! I had read and heard stories about people having just 5 of the 6 numbers and raking in four, sometimes as much as five or six thousand dollars in winnings!
Unfortunately, 5 numbers, for what ever reason, became much less valuable for a period of time!
“Thanks Murphy!”
Of course, during that time, very shortly after developing this system, we hit 5 numbers once for $1500 and another time for $2600! Now-a-days, it’s back up, even well beyond, the 5K range for five numbers!
I heard recently, a ‘Fiver’ took home $10,576!
“Come on Murphy! I’m DUE!”
Oh no…Not AGAIN!
Another change that occurred in the Florida Lottery was the addition of four more numbers! And, when they added 50 thru 53 the odds jumped significantly!
Now, that the odds have unfavorably increased, there are many more ‘roll-overs’ than before, so the jackpots get HUGE!
With the expansion to the range of numbers, I added ‘Y’ to the key to identify a number as a ‘FIFTY’. I then began sampling the expanded number range to learn the effect of the new numbers, designated as ‘Y’.
Though I’ve not done as complete a study with the new ‘Y’ factor as I did before its addition, I have done quite a bit of sampling.
Of the 100 groups I analyzed, I learned that the new ‘Y’ (50 thru 53) only showed up in 20% of the groups and it was not a factor in the top four configurations!
The strongest trend in this new sampling was:
- STWWHF
- STTWFF
- STWHHF
- TTWHFF
As you can see by this study, not a lot changed in the configuration of the groups! I’ve just stayed with the four from the original study and swapped out a few H’s for Y’s…
Just in case!
The change to the E/O ratio was not that significant either! While they changed slightly, the ‘pecking order’ did not!
It remains, in order:
- 3:3
- 2:4
- 4:2
- 1:5
- 5:1
- 6:0
- 0:6
Have you ever?…
…felt the rush of seeing the cashier’s eyes widen as she quietly says,
“Um…you’ll need to take this to the Lottery Office.”
“We can’t do that large of a payout here!”
“Cha-Ching!” It is exciting!
Thus far, I can only imagine how it would be to hit all six numbers!!
“Ka-Whump!” As I hit the floor!
A few things to be aware of:
If a clerk or cashier checks your ticket, then holds it over the trash can and says,
“Nope! Sorry, no retirement this week! You don’t need this …do you?”
YES! As a matter of fact you do need it!
Could it happen with a big winning ticket? Sure it could!
Is that a mighty risky move on the part of the cashier? Sure it is!
While it is very convenient to just have the store ‘run it’, it is very simple to check it yourself! Besides, if you check it and it’s a winner, your own floor is probably a much better place to land!
For Floridians, the Lottery website, ‘flalottery.com’ is the quickest (and safest) place to check your own ticket. The site is very user friendly and provides a box where you just type in your numbers and it will let you know whether you’ve won!…or not.
They also display the current numbers from the most recent drawing and there’s also a ‘click-button’ for “Previous Drawings”…week by week!
There’s a lot of other good information on the site as well, from all of the game rules for the various games, to a rather thorough FAQ section. Each state with a lottery has a similar lottery website, as well.
Continuing…
The MOMENT you realize you have a winning ticket…
Sign it and hide it until you redeem it! InFlorida, you have 180 days to cash in!
Even we procrastinators could make that deadline!
Sure, you trust John…so do I!
“Keep this under your hat, but,
I JUST HIT THE LOTTERY! Not a WORD to ANYONE! Right?”
“You got it Bro…not a peep!”
After you cash in, tell whomever you choose…including your boss!
But me? Not before!
Given the results of this study, you can now see which groups are hot and which groups are not! This information is very useful in logically selecting your numbers!
I hope that besides making you run and buy a lottery ticket, I also managed to show you that THERE IS A WAY to get better odds of winning.
Look…
I’m not a professional lottery player, but I do manage to get around and “bet” smarter than the next guy.
But if you want to learn how to skyrocket your odds and truly be on a “league of your own” you might want to take a look at Ken Silver , A.K.A “The Multi-Million Dollar Lotto Guy“.
If you think that what I showed you here is cool, wait till you see what he came up with (his system)! Ken might have single handedly re-defined the term “odds” for lottery players.
And by the way…
In my article I only covered the Florida lotto, and although my “system” works with other games as well, Ken’s system is MUCH more robust and works with literally hundreds of games in many countries…you can see the full list on his website by going here.
Trust me, this one is a complete gold mine for lotto players (well, not only lotto!).
And NO…don’t expect to go on winning $3.2 MIL, a big share of a $2.8 MIL pot, or $800K plus 5 numbers in 3/5 draws like other guys that used his slick and ingenious system have. That might not happen so fast. But, as you will see on his website, 1000′s of players around the globe are doing quite well!
Good “luck“!
Mike
