HOW LOTTO GAMES WORK

Playing lottery is easy, right? You pick your favourite numbers, then sit back and wait for the winnings to roll in. Of course, it’s not that simple. Let’s dive a bit deeper into how lotteries really work.

How to play lotto games

Lotto games take many forms, but most involve a random draw of numbers. If your numbers match the randomly selected numbers, you win. The more of your numbers that match the ones drawn, the bigger the prize you win.

The odds of winning

Whether you buy your tickets online or in-person, the odds of winning a lottery vary wildly, as do the price of a ticket and the prizes. The odds may depend on how many tickets have been purchased—by you and by other people—and how many numbers you need to match. Generally speaking, the odds of winning the top prize are very low, even in comparison to other types of gambling.

Let’s take the example of a fairly common lotto games, a draw of six numbers between one and 49. The odds of winning the jackpot, which requires you to match all six numbers, are 1 in 13,983,816. And that’s not all. Even if you win, if more than one person also matches all six numbers, you split the jackpot, reducing your share.

But prizes are awarded if you match only a portion of the numbers drawn, right?

Yes, but the odds of matching five out of six numbers—1 in 55,492—aren’t exactly great. And in many cases the prize for matching five numbers is small, often only a few hundred dollars, compared to millions of dollars for the jackpot.

BUSTING LOTTO GAMES MYTHS

Developing skills as a player will improve your odds of winning the lottery.

The lottery is purely chance based. Winning numbers are selected at random and there is no way to predict what numbers will come up. There are no special skills you can acquire to become better at picking numbers, or winning, apart from buying more tickets. The best approach is to research the rules of the games you like to play, find out the odds of winning, and use that information to make the right choices for you.

Choosing Quick Picks increases your chances of winning.

Using the Quick Pick option, where the numbers are randomly chosen for you, doesn’t improve your odds of winning—and it doesn’t make them worse. Every number has an equal chance of being drawn, whether you pick it, or a computer picks it for you.

Selecting unpopular numbers is a good strategy for winning.

Choosing a combination of numbers that few other people would pick does not improve the odds that your numbers will come up. However, if no one else has picked the same numbers as you, you won’t have to split the winnings with other people.

Picking the same numbers each week will improve your odds of winning.

No. Picking the same numbers each week doesn’t improve your odds of winning. It doesn’t make them worse either. Each time the numbers are drawn, there is the same chance they will come up as last time.

People in Ontario have a better chance of winning the lotteries.

It may seem like people from Ontario win national lotteries all the time. The reason why is simple probability. More than a third of Canada’s population lives in Ontario. So it makes sense that winning numbers come from the province roughly a third of the time.