Because if you played 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 13 and those numbers are drawn, there may be thousands of people to splitting the prize with. In a $10 million dollar jackpot, you could end up with less than a Pick 3 payoff.
Alot of people choose numbers that, when marked in the squares, create a design on there play slip. The most popular patterns are horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines; letters of the alphabet, or the four corners and center of the play slip; zigzags; and crosses. Even if you do win, playing popular ticket patterns will greatly reduce your share of the jackpot.
Don't make a habit of playing all low numbers on one ticket. Keep in mind that the digits 1 through 9 are even more popular. Keep those to a minimum. It seems there are few hard and fast rules in Lotteries, although. There have been multimillion-dollar jackpots in which the winning numbers were all low ones but since they weren't popular combinations of low numbers, the winners didn't have to split the jackpot with many other winners.Though the results aren't as dramatically disappointing as with popular numbers, another way you may lose out -- even if you win -- is when the jackpot is large. When there is no winner for a while, the prize money rolls over and, in a sort of snowball effect, grows ever larger. The more people buy tickets, the bigger the jackpot grows. And the bigger it grows, the more people buy tickets. Lured by pots of $100 million, $500 million, and higher, players come out of the woodwork. Even those who don't usually play the lottery will play the lottery!
If you pick five out of six, there may be many more five-out-of-six winners than usual, which may mean less money for you. If the name of the game is to win, and the way to win is to lessen the odds, why join the crowd? Go ahead and buy a ticket for the big-money drawing. But smart players quietly prefer the "small" jackpots, those of only $1 million, $2 million, or $5 million. This is called maximizing the value of your prize. If you think about it, those "small" jackpots would be pretty nice prizes to win, too.
