For the purposes of this article, I am going to assume when picking numbers for a lottery ticket, those possible values are between 1 and 49 because that’s how it was for Lotto 649.
In its latest ads, OLG has ideas for us on how to pick your numbers. One is that if you have triplets, then pick the number 3. The most live babies a human can have at one time is 8. That’s why Octomom was such a big deal a number of years ago. No human female successfully had eight babies in one go before this. So if we pick numbers based on how many babies someone had in one batch, the numbers just range from 1 to 8. The numbers 9 to 49 just don’t occur when you are picking like this. This makes it about a 1 in 6 chance of of picking a possible lottery number that came up.
The incredibly enlightening ad from the OLG gives more suggestions for picking numbers. The next one offered was for a milestone birthday like 40. How many of those are there between 1 and 49? If we just use the 10s, there are only 4 milestone birthdays between 1 and 49. Perhaps we could add 18, 19, 21 and 25 to the mix. This results in 8 milestone birthdays between 1 and 49. Again we have about a 1 in 6 chance of picking a possible lottery number that came up.
Another suggestion for picking numbers comes from sports jerseys. How about picking your favourite player’s number? Don’t jerseys go from 1 to 99, so this covers all the numbers in a 1 to 49 lottery? Well there are about 25 players on a sports team (I am going by hockey but I think soccer and football and baseball are similar with fewer being on a basketball team.) 25 numbers out of 49 numbers gives odds of about 1 in 2 that you have picked a possible number that came up in the lottery.
So don’t pick like the losers in the television ad did. Pick numbers that have a full chance of coming up. A 1 in 1 chance. These numbers would actually range from 1 to 49. Good luck choosing.
A second ad that the OLG runs is the Mr. Encore ad. A friend of his called the rube “Mr. Encore” because he won the $100 000 prize in the Encore lottery twice in a few months. Which means he won big then kept playing.
This is what the OLG wants you to do. The more you play after a big win, the more the luck evens out. Yes, you could win twice. But there are much better odds that you will never win again. Even if you play all your winnings, chances are you will lose it all before getting that second big win.
I’ve known a blackjack dealer from a casino and know how he used to think of the game as going. To entertain himself he would pretend he was playing against all the customers. And this is how OLG likely works. The more money they gain, the better they can justify their salaries.
And what is with the Price is Right gimmicks? We now have the big wheel and the plinko board. I bet the OLG is paying rights to the Price is Right because they even use that television show’s theme song during the ads. So in short, if you want to win with OLG, be the Price is Right.
