Lottery players are gearing up for Thursday night's $100 million (£52 million) Powerball draw, but a top mathematics expert says there is only one real way to boost your odds. The jackpot rolled over after nobody matched the winning numbers last week, making it the biggest Powerball prize in Australia for over a year.
The odds of scooping the top prize stand at one in 134.5 million. If a single player matches all the numbers, they will pocket the equal third-biggest lottery jackpot in Australian history.
Expert's only strategy
Professor John Croucher, a mathematics expert, says players looking to get lucky only have one option: buy more tickets.
"Buy more tickets. There's nothing else you can do to increase your chances," he told the Daily Mail. "There's no other strategy, but if there was, I'd be using it."
Prof Croucher noted that picking unorthodox number combinations won't make you win, but it might stop you from having to share the loot if your numbers do come up. Predictable sequences like 1, 2, 3, 4 or patterned picks like 1, 11, 21, 31 are popular among players, meaning any win with those combinations gets split between multiple ticket holders.
Lotto myths dismissed
Prof Croucher also slammed common lotto myths, warning punters not to waste their time analysing past results or chasing so-called "hot" or "cold" numbers. According to the expert, every single ball has the exact same probability of rolling out of the machine every single time.
"People talk about numbers that haven't been drawn out as much and call these numbers overdue, meaning they are more likely to be drawn out, but that's not true," he said. "In the opposite end, people will say that numbers that have come up more often than they should, won't happen again, but that's also not true."
"The machine has no memory, so like a poker machine, it has no memory of what happened before and everything starts afresh."
Prof Croucher added: "Powerball themselves on their website actually say which numbers have been drawn out the most and the least, but that's no guarantee they've got any more or any less chance of being drawn out again."
Most frequent numbers
Statistically, the most frequently drawn Powerball number is nine, which has landed 103 times since the current format kicked off in 2018. Number 17 is hot on its heels with 102 appearances, while seven and 11 have popped up 101 times each.
Despite the near-impossible odds, millions of hopefuls are rushing to get their entries in before the balls drop on Thursday night.
