Community Corner

Mathematician Shares Mega Millions Lottery Secrets

Aaron Abrams offered that if you're going to take the foolish step of playing the lottery to begin with, there are some numbers that are better than others.

UPDATED at 8:36 p.m.: The winning numbers for the largest Mega Millions jackpot in history are: 46, 23, 38, 4, 2; mega ball was 23.

On Thursday, mathematician Aaron Abrams from Emory University in Atlanta spoke with NPR host Robert Siegel about strategies for playing the Mega Millions lottery. The jackpot has reached historic proportions at more than a half billion dollars in the pot tonight.

So given his expertise, did the professor drop any tips on how to increase the odds of winning?

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He sure did: You're about 100 times more likely to be killed by flesh-eating bacteria than you are to win the lottery.

Abrams offered that if you're going to take the foolish step of playing the lottery to begin with, there are some numbers – “uncommon numbers”  -- that are better than others. They won’t increase your odds of winning, but if you do win, you can increase the likelihood that you're the only one who wins, Abrams said. Afterall, who wants to share $540 million?

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Uncommon numbers, Abrams explained, are those that fewer people pick.

“Many people tend to pick birthdays, favorite numbers, and these tend to be small. The numbers that you can pick for Mega Millions go as high as 56. But, of course, dates only go as high as 31. People tend to pick odd numbers more than even numbers. So, even numbers larger than 31 are less common. But, again, whatever strategy you pick for choosing your numbers doesn't increase your odds of winning,” Abrams told Siegel.

Friday’s jackpot is the largest lottery prize in world history, according to the Mega Millions folks. When computing the numbers, Abrams said “every now and then, there's a lottery that has somewhat decent odds. What it takes to have decent odds is a relatively large jackpot, which this one certainly has. The second, a relatively small number of tickets to be sold, which this doesn't have.”

Abrams said the mega jackpot is very atypical, but someone will eventually win.

“… one thing that we noticed is that we never expected the jackpot to get this large, ever. It should happen about once every 200 years. And, of course, Mega Millions has only been around for a few years. So, this is a rare event, but rare events do happen.”

And one more thing: Abrams reminded listeners that, mathematically speaking, if you don’t play, you can’t win.

Click here to listen to the full interview.

Looking for the best places to buy tickets? to read about the luckiest retailers. And to read about that winning Mega Millions ticket sold in Corona this week.


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