The director of the Center for Communications Research in La Jolla, California, Ryan (Skip) Garibaldi, is the latest mathematician to claim he has a strategy to increase a player’s chances of winning a major jackpot for lotteries and scratchcards.
Garibaldi, who heads a team of mathematicians and computer scientists in developing new problem-solving science, revealed his winning tips on a Wired YouTube video Tuesday:
Garibaldi’s first tips are about what not to do, claiming players shouldn’t pick lucky numbers or dates, such as birthdays or the days they’ll play. Instead, Garibaldi stated, picking less-popular numbers, such as sequential numbers, could be a smart move. He said:
If you look at a ticket like that, it looks weird.”
Garibaldi expanded by adding: “So many sequential numbers help you not share the jackpot, which is good.”
Another Garibaldi local lottery tip is purchasing tickets in states that sell the fewest, which means you’re unlikely to split the jackpot. The biggest prize in Maryland lottery history in 2021 backs that up, won courtesy of a Powerball ticket bought in a small town.
To increase your odds of winning on scratchcards, Garibaldi suggests rather practically, using sites where you can see specific state-by-state tickets and prizes that are still up for grabs.
Lottery winning tips are, of course, nothing new, with Richard Lustig writing multiple books on the subject from a winner’s perspective. Lustig won the local Florida lottery four times to rake in over $1m using the same hand-picked sequential numbers constantly.