I was going to get some lottery tickets for my birthday and I've never played it before. I'm not sure if I sould pick my own numbers or let the computer do it for me? Is there any stats of winning tickets that were either computer or human picked? What do you do?

Since the lottery is truly random, it doesn't matter how you pick the numbers. Your chances of winning are equally low by any method.

To find a lucky number for the day, look at the positions of winning horses in the same day's races. Second best, look at the numbers on the shirts of the players in winning team sports that day. Remember: numbers are only lucky for one day, then you need all new lucky numbers. So only buy on the day of the draw. Don't do something dumb like deciding you have a lifelong 'lucky number'. It doesn't work like that.

Or you could not buy a ticket. Your odds of winning are just about the same as if you do buy a ticket.

Or you could test your betting savvy in advance.

1. Pick some lucky numbers, write them down, put the money they would have cost in a jar on a high shelf where it's out of sight.

2. On lottery draw day, check if the numbers you picked were winning numbers. No cheating. They have to be in the same order as they would appear on a lottery ticket.

If you've never seen a lottery ticket up close, simply go to the nearest outlet on public assistance payday, and pick up one of the thousands littering the ground. Observe the number format.

If the numbers you picked made up a winning ticket, you're allowed to take the money out of the jar. And buy a real lottery ticket next time. If no (you haven't won the imaginary lottery), wait till next week and start at #1 again.

Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But what you will find is that the contents of the jar increases and increases. After ten years of playing the lottery on a weekly basis, that jar will start to look pretty good, with $5,200 in it. But you can't touch it. You have to 'win' it.

(Oh, all right. You can take the jar money out when your firstborn kid goes to college. If you don't have a first-born, or any others, you can spend the jar money on a holiday when you are at the age which you would have been if you'd had kids and the firstborn was just starting college.)

I think you'll agree I'm strict but fair.

Odds are you will have a nice little nest-egg to make a down-payment on that tuition!

But if you played the lottery for real, you'd have an empty jar by the time your firstborn goes to college.



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