Nick Kapoor knows the thrill of hitting winning Powerball numbers.
The mathematics professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut did just that in 2016 with a ticket he bought to show his statistics students how difficult it is to strike it big. Instead, he made it look easy, matching four of the five numbers plus the Powerball for a prize of $100,000.
“So the lesson didn’t really go according to plan,” he told NBC. “But it is a fun story and I still buy a lottery ticket and bring it into the classroom because it is very, very improbable for someone to win the lottery. It just so happened that that time it happened to be me."
With lots of competition out there, we wanted to know how to improve our chances of becoming a billionaire — or at least winning $100,000. Can past picks offer any lessons? What about lucky numbers? How do you game the system?
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Who better to ask than Kapoor -- and so we did. Here are his tips.
Is there a winning strategy for picking your lottery numbers?
Should you choose your birthday or other lucky combinations? Repeat the same numbers or pick new ones each time?
There’s no science to the lottery, so go ahead and pick your favorite numbers, Kapoor said. Nothing in the past or future affects each individual lottery drawing, what is known in mathematics as an “independent event.” Every time, you start afresh.
So how can you increase your odds?
To better your chances of winning any lottery, you have to buy more tickets, he said. The more tickets, the more chances of choosing the right combination of numbers. But Kapoor is cautious about describing that as improving your odds. In Powerball, there are more than 35 billion combinations of numbers, three of which are chosen each week.
“We’re talking about .00001 to .00002,” he said. “It’s still very, very improbable.”
What are the odds of winning Powerball or Mega Millions?
Your chance of taking home the top prize is tiny. The odds in any lottery are about one in 300 million. That’s about 1 in 292.2 million for Powerball and 1 in 302.6 million for Mega Millions.
What’s more likely? Many, many things, including getting hit by lightning.
Has it become harder to win?
Yes, both the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries have become more difficult. The Powerball lottery lengthened the odds of winning the top prize from 1 in 175.2 million to the current 1 in 292.2 million in 2015, according to The Associated Press. Mega Millions went from 1 in 258.9 million to 1 in 302.6 million two years later.
Why are lottery jackpots so big lately?
The jackpots grew because as the lotteries added to the pool of numbers players could pick from, it became more improbable to hit one, Kapoor said. The result has been the largest lottery jackpots in American history over the last 10 years. And as the jackpots grow, even more people buy tickets.
But as with other things, lottery ticket sales are cyclical, fluctuating with the economy and recessions.
Any final advice?
If a lottery is truly fair, there is no way to game the system, Kapoor said.
A few last words: “Play responsibly because it can get very dicey very quickly," he said.
If you or someone you know has a gambling addiction, please call the National Council on Problem Gambling at 1-800-522-4700 to speak to a counselor. Help is also available via an online peer support forum at www.gamtalk.org, and additional resources can be found at NCPG website.
