Do These Numbers Hold The Key To Winning The Lottery? The Verdict Is Still Out

Winning the lottery is a dream come true for many, and for the approximately 50% of Americans who play the lottery, that dream is enough to keep them spending their hard-earned cash on a chance at a big score. And they are spending quite a bit of cash, at that. Motley Fool Money reported that in 2022 alone, Americans spent an incredible $97.8 billion on the lottery. With that kind of money going toward a game of chance, it is not surprising that many players have their own strategies for winning ranging from buying tickets at certain stores or on certain days of the week. Some people even put faith in their local Chinese restaurants, with one lucky lottery winner in North Carolina landing a prize of $344 million after getting his lucky numbers from a fortune cookie.

While lottery games offer a "quick pick" option which allows you to buy a ticket consisting of randomly selected numbers generated by a computer, many regular lotto players have a preferred list of favorite numbers they like to play over and over in hopes that eventually their gamble will pay off. There is no guaranteed way of picking winning numbers — the lottery is, after all, a gamble on a game with incredibly poor odds — several strategies lean toward picking random numbers that are spread out across the range of possible numbers. This method avoids picking numbers in sequence or clustered together and avoids picking numbers that have sentimental value, a strategy that has not been proven to be effective.

You've probably heard the old saying that you are more likely to be hit by lightning than win the lottery. It turns out that, according to the Employment Security Commission, you are not only more likely to be struck by lightning than winning the lottery, but there is also a higher likelihood of being attacked by a shark or dying in a plane crash. For people who live nowhere near the beach or are afraid to fly, this may seem a bit skewed, but what it boils down to is that the chances of winning a big jackpot are pretty slim for everyone.

In fact, the odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, while the odds of hitting it big with a Mega Millions drawing are 1 in 302,575,350. If you are the kind of gambler who prefers to pick your own set of lucky numbers, the California Lottery website can help you see how your odds stack up against past drawings with the Lucky Numbers tab, a fun tool that lets you enter your favorite numbers and see how they often they have come up in drawings over the last five years. The key, though, is to pick a variety of numbers from low to high.

Jackpots have been getting higher and higher in recent years, with some of the biggest pots in history up for grabs. The last few years have seen prizes like a Mega Millions jackpot in New Jersey worth $1.13 billion and the biggest lottery jackpot ever, $2.04 billion, which was nabbed by a lucky winner in California in 2022. Unfortunately, winning the lottery isn't the answer to everyone's prayers, especially if you aren't prepared to handle the influx of cash and make sound financial decisions with it. Sadly, a fair number of lottery winners still end up broke, and many lottery winners find themselves strapped with a whole new list of problems from long-lost relatives looking for a handout to learning how to responsibly manage their newfound wealth (helpful hint: enlist the help of a financial advisor to help navigate these murky waters).

And don't forget: The tax man cometh. Lottery winnings are taxable for everyone at the federal level — not only does the lottery withhold a portion for taxes up front on prizes over $5,000, but you may also have to pay additional federal taxes based on your personal tax bracket come tax time — and on the state level for residents of most states (currently eight states don't tax lottery winnings). Losing a large chunk of your winnings to taxes can seriously deflate the high of winning the lottery regardless of whether your numbers were chosen at random or through a carefully devised system of choosing your own lucky numbers.