Common Lottery Mistakes - Using Dates As Lottery Numbers

By Author: Darrel Dolph
Total Articles: 46
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Common practice for many lottery players is to use dates for their lottery numbers. Not a great idea, as this article explains.

People use family birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates to create their lottery wagers. The thought is that these dates brought them luck before and, therefore, by playing them, it will happen again. After all, these were the luckiest days in their lives. But, instead of increasing their chances of winning the lottery jackpot, this lottery approach has the exact opposite effect.

For example, when using this lottery strategy, you are only playing lottery numbers 1 thru 31. So, if you are playing the MN531, WI531, WildCard531, PA530 or WV625, this lottery strategy at least has a chance of baring fruit. But, these five lotteries are the only lottos in North America where that is true. By using this approach in the other 70 lotteries you have either committed Hari-kari or, at the very least, shot yourself in the foot.

Here's the Hari-kari scenario. If you're playing the NY659 or the Powerball 5/59 lottery, choosing dates as lottery numbers would be a big mistake. ...
... Why? Because, over 47% of the lottery numbers, from 32 thru 59, will never appear in any of your wagers. But, typically, almost half of the lottery numbers drawn will come from that group. Therefore, you would have seriously reduced your chances of winning the lottery jackpot. You've taken yourself out of contention.

Let me put an exclamation point on this. In the last 200 drawings of the NY659 there was only one jackpot winning ticket in which all of the numbers were between 1 and 31. Therefore, you were in the running to win the lottery jackpot a miserably unimpressive 0.5% of the time. You had no chance of winning in 199 of those 200 drawings.

Here's the shooting yourself in the foot scenario. Now, as the size of the lottery becomes smaller, 54, 49, 47, 44, 40, etc., the negative impact is lessened. For example, in the last 740 drawings of the NJ540 lottery, 23% of the winning jackpot numbers contained only numbers less than or equal to 31. That doesn't sound too bad. Well, that's one way of looking at it. But, in 77% of the drawings you didn't even have a chance of winning the lottery jackpot. Bad luck didn't cause that. You're strategy took you out of the running. You shot yourself in the foot.

Some people will continue playing this way, in spite of this article. I wish them well. I hope they all win the big one. But, what I am trying to do, what all of my articles are for is to improve your chances of winning the lottery jackpot in as many drawings as possible. We don't want to let even one opportunity pass us by.
Professor Dolph is the famous Lottery expert, lecturer and columnist who authored LONA, your LOtto Number Advisor. Go to Lottery Predictions for a refreshing look at Lottery software.