A lottery is a game in which numbers are drawn at random to determine the winner of a prize. The winner can win a big cash prize, a luxury home or a trip around the world. Lottery has become a popular form of gambling in many countries. It also raises money for state governments.
While some people play the lottery just for the thrill of it, most players are more serious about winning. They spend a significant portion of their income on tickets. They are disproportionately low-income, less educated and nonwhite. And they are a substantial portion of the lottery’s player base, and its biggest moneymaker.
Most people buy a ticket at least once a year, and most of them do it more than once. But Cohen is especially interested in the “regular players,” who buy tickets more than once a week and spend, on average, $50 to $100 a week. These regulars defy the prevailing notions about them: that they are irrational and don’t know what they’re doing; and that, implicitly, you’re smarter than them because you don’t buy a ticket.
He suggests that players look at their lottery tickets and try to find patterns in the digits. For example, he advises players to avoid numbers confined to the same group and those that end in similar digits. Instead, players should search for a group of singletons, which will signal a likely winner. Experimenting with other scratch off tickets may help you develop this technique.