8 Ways To Choose Your Lottery Numbers

Winning the lottery is all about choosing the right numbers. It’s impossible to know exactly which numbers will come up because the lottery machines are designed to be completely random. Unless you happen to be a clairvoyant or fortune teller, you won’t be able to know the numbers in advance. So what can we ordinary folk do to pick the best numbers on our lottery tickets?
Throughout the many years in the history of the lotto, players have used many different ways to come up with these all-important numbers when buying their lottery tickets.

8 Top Ways To Choose Your Lottery Numbers:

Hot vs cold numbers – Hot numbers are numbers that are drawn often, while cold numbers are numbers that are not drawn frequently at all. Different lotteries have different hot and cold numbers. Some players prefer to choose numbers that are hot, with the belief that they are likely to come up again. At the other end of the spectrum are those players who like to go with the cold numbers, following the common human assumption that if something hasn’t happened in a long time, it is overdue and is likely to happen soon. There are even those who would choose a combination of hot and cold numbers.

Birthdays – For many players, instinct is to choose the birthdays of family members and/or close friends. There’s one problem with this strategy though – this limits you to choosing numbers only up to number 31, and often the hot numbers include numbers higher than this. Also since many people choose birthdays, chances are (if you do win) that you would need to split your prize with others.

Lucky numbers – This is another favourite tactic for picking lottery numbers. There’s no logic to this method, it’s more of a superstition. There have even been studies around lucky numbers, and an experimental physicist by the name of Jonathan Clarke determined that numbers that end in a ‘7’ digit are actually the most popular numbers. Do you have enough lucky numbers to fill a lottery ticket though? Chances are that you don’t.

Systems and Software– There are many number-selection tools and mathematical systems out there. Not all of them work but there are a few that are worth using. Systematic forms are very effective in helping you come up with many different number combinations automatically. This tool takes your chosen lottery numbers and the number of lines that you activated on your ticket and uses every single possible number combination with them. This is impossible to do manually if you are buying lots of tickets. Online systematic forms allow you to create automatic number combinations yourself using your favourite numbers. This system increases your odds of winning. It also guarantees that you win more because you win in the lower prize categories too.

Aesthetic Approach – This is an interesting approach that, believe it or not, has actually worked for players in the past! With this method, you would literally just look at your lottery ticket and choose numbers in a pattern that appeals to you aesthetically. This is the easiest way to choose numbers because there is no thought involved other than what looks pretty. A true (and amusing) story is that in 1995, in the 9^th draw of the U.K. National Lottery, 133 players won the £16 million jackpot prize! Strange coincidence or was there something more to it? When the numbers were analyzed, it showed that all of the winning numbers lay within the three middle columns of the ticket. Also, no numbers lay in the same row nor adjacently. They were generally chosen randomly in a pattern that looked appealing!

Random numbers – Experts believe that this is the best way to choose your lottery numbers. Why? Simply because when you choose numbers at random you are less likely to have the same numbers as many others. So even though it won’t increase your odds of winning, it will give you a greater shot at winning more money (because you are less likely to have to split your prize.)
There are a number of ways to select random numbers - either you can pick them yourself or you can get a system to do it for you. If you choose the Quick Pick option when you buy your lottery ticket, the lottery itself will automatically choose numbers for you at random. You can even find tools online to generate random numbers for you, but why do this when there’s the Quick Pick option right there on your ticket? If you’re buying a whole batch of lottery tickets, then the Quick Pick is probably the best method for you, because it will save you a lot of time and hassle. It is especially easy to use when playing online, because all you need to do is click on the Quick Pick button – no need to wait in the long Quick Pick line at the store!
There have been many winners of big jackpots who have won with their Quick Pick numbers. Gloria Mackenzie is the legendary US Powerball winner who famously won $590 million in 2013. This 84-year old Florida resident bought a Quick Pick ticket and became the sole winner of this record-breaking jackpot prize. In fact, the kind woman before her in the Quick Pick queue let her cut in line, inadvertently forfeiting the prize.
This just goes to show that even going the completely random route can make you a winner, it’s all up to the luck of the draw. Statistically more players have won by Quick Picks. But the data is skewed simply because more players choose their numbers with Quick Picks than with any other method.

Numbers from a dream – Another superstitious way to choose your lottery numbers is to select numbers that you experienced in a dream. There are many players who base their numbers on a dream, or even on an unusual occurrence or sequence of events. Even though this approach is not mathematical or scientific, there is something to be said about the significance of dreams in our lives.
The $189 million Mega Millions jackpot winner is proof of that! This anonymous winner from Maryland claims that the night before the Mega Millions draw, he dreamt that his family members were telling him the winning numbers. He went out and purchased 10 Mega Millions tickets the very next morning, using varying combinations of these numbers (as well as his birth date). One of these tickets was the winning ticket of the October 1^st, 2013 draw and he became an instant multi-millionaire. Now that’s fulfilling your lotto dream!

Numerology – Players that are into numerology often like to incorporate their significant numbers into their lottery tickets. Numerology assigns different meanings to each of the 1-9 digits, for example, number 1 signifies courage, leadership and independence, while number 8 represents fortune, money and success. There is a calculation involved that condenses an important number (for example a date) in your life into a single digit from 1-9.

Best Way To Choose Lottery Numbers

At the end of the day, there is no exact formula, or right and wrong way, to choose lottery numbers because the numbers are chosen by the lottery machines at random. Whether you’re into mathematics or superstitions, or even just total acts of randomness, the outcome cannot be predicted.
You can even use a combination of different methods to choose your numbers and wait to see what happens. Judy Marsh from Virginia recently won her second big Mega Millions prize! This lucky lady won a big lottery prize twice – first in 2008 and again this September. She consistently uses the same lucky numbers in every draw. These numbers consist of her beloved late mom’s birth date and the date she passed away. Then for the remaining numbers, she selected random numbers. There’s no science to how she picked her numbers but it worked!

What We Can Learn from Repeat Lottery Winners

Judy Marsh is not the only repeat lottery winner out there. There are players who have even won three or more times! Do you believe that they are just lucky people or do they have a knack for picking the best numbers? Some of these players have shared their tips to winning lottery prizes.
Joan Ginther is a legendary lottery winner who won 4 massive payouts, totaling to $20.4 million! Her secret was to buy thousands and thousands of lottery tickets, thereby giving her many different number combinations and dramatically increasing her odds of winning. Other repeat lottery winners have shared strategies to success. Seven-time lottery winner, Richard Lustig, advises not to play the Quick Picks. His logic is that if you choose your numbers yourself you are less likely to duplicate number combinations of recent lottery winners. This all depends on whether you’ve done your homework before choosing numbers, of course.

Choosing Lottery Numbers is Personal

These strategies and tips are based on players’ opinions, and not on fact, so don’t count on any of them when picking your lottery numbers. Obviously the more tickets you buy the better your odds of winning, because you will land up with many different number combinations.
Playing online makes choosing lottery numbers a simpler process because everything is automated. You can save your favourite numbers so that you don’t need to type them in with each and every ticket purchase. You can also enter multiple draws or activate a subscription using your saved set of numbers. Systematic forms also automate number combinations and increase your chance of winning more money.
At the end of the day, you should go with the numbers and the strategy that feels right to you and then hope that Lady Luck will be on your side during the draw. The only strategy that will guarantee you any chance of winning is to choose numbers and buy your lottery tickets, because you can only stand to win if you play.
We have some tips for you if you are wondering how to improve your chances of winning the US Powerball - so good luck!