We all dream of winning the Lottery big-time – what we would do with the money, which of our own problems it would solve, how we could help the family or our favourite charity. In short, how we could use it better than those who win and waste it.

We devise, or pay for, Top Lottery Tips, we look for a mathematical formula to improve our chances of winning the lottery. Some USA residents can’t even enter the Lottery, so what should they do?

Here’s a brief run-down of some of the tips I’ve collected over my years of playing, and collecting winnings, from several Lotteries: the UK Lotto, EuroMillions and the Florida Lottery.

First: number patterns 1,2,3,4,5,6 at the most basic, or for something a little less obvious you might try the seven times table. Seven’s a ‘lucky’ number and there’s a bit of maths in there. That must be worth a try: 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and it conveniently ends on 49, the highest number in the UK Lotto.

Unfortunately, however good this feels, no one number selection is any more or less likely to win than any other one. And if it does happen to win you’re going to be sharing your prize with all the others who chose the same number pattern as you.

A second system is picking family birthdays, but what about the numbers 32 to 49? And although you’re less likely to be sharing your prize, you still haven’t overcome the problem that your numbers are seriously unlikely to win.

As a third possibility, you can search online and you’ll find no end of formulae, systems and books that claim to be able to increase your chances of winning. So can everyone else.

However seductive the number patterns and formulae sound, the sad truth is that the only way to get more chances of winning is to buy more tickets! At its simplest, when you buy two tickets you have just doubled your chances of winning. Of course, you’ve doubled your costs too.

A better approach to buying more tickets is to join a Lottery syndicate or a Lottery Club. The club approach will overcome the problem faced by those living in the USA in states without a Lottery. The club buys your tickets, groups you with various other members and the winnings are pooled and shared out.

There are many syndicates available online so you have a wide range of choices or you could run your own. Which is the best approach?

Some people worry about online firms being dishonest and not paying out, so preferring the hard work of running their own syndicate to minimize the risk. Although this sounds like common sense, the following true story shows how easily greed can overcome loyalty to your fellow syndicate members.

A friend, Jon, joined a work syndicate run by, let’s call him Fred. One day Fred, normally a reliable and popular co-worker, just didn’t turn up for work. He didn’t return any phone calls and at first it was assumed he had a bad cold and would soon be back. But after a few days it was so uncharacteristic of Fred that his employers were concerned for his well-being and sent someone to his home address.

What they found was amazing – his whole house was unoccupied and neighbors had no forwarding address.

At first his work colleagues couldn’t understand this; Fred seemed a model employee with no worries and no reason to act in such a way. Then they thought to check their work syndicate Lottery numbers and found that a short while ago they had indeed scooped the jackpot. The prize had been collected by the winning ticket holder, Fred, who had requested no publicity, quietly planned his departure and disappeared without trace, never to be heard from again.

After hearing this story from one of the “might-have-been” syndicate winners, you can imagine that I’d recommend trusting a well-established company that makes a profit from running the syndicate and has a successful business reputation to lose, rather than trusting one person, however well you think you know them.

And of course there are the stories you read in the papers where the numbers won, but the syndicate manager had forgotten to buy the usual tickets, lost them – or had even been pocketing members’ weekly dues because a jackpot win was so unlikely.

After those stories (and I promise that the Fred story is completely true) I come down in favor of using a professionally managed and well-established business, rather than trusting any one person to take the responsibility of managing the syndicate or club and to act honorably with the winnings.

So my top tip to win more on the lottery is to have shares in more entries by joining a Lottery Club or Syndicate, but do choose carefully.

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