If you don't determine what Longshots are, we will start with some history and a definition. A number of years back there was a lottery strategy that became rather popular that, for lack of a greater name, we'll call the Hot Number Strategy. In addition to it came the standard marketing hype that you would expect. The pitch went something like this:
Since more than 80% of all winning lottery numbers Hit within the last 10 drawings, create your play list from the winners within the last 10 drawings. This will improve your chances of winning the lottery.
Initially, it sounds plausible enough. Nevertheless, let's think of this. Implicit in this particular strategy is the opposite side of the coin. Any lottery numbers that have not Hit in the last 10 drawings are thought about a rather dubious pick. Hence, these lottery numbers were named Longshots. The name persists to this day and I even use it. Nonetheless, I do not malign the utilization of Longshots. In fact, I applaud them. Including Longshots in a play list is an absolute necessity for almost any viable lottery strategy.
For all of those lottery players who got caught up in the Hot Number Strategy hype, this was, without doubt, a really expensive lesson. A great deal of cash was spent with little to show for it.
Excluding Longshots resulted in a Hot Number Strategy disaster. In reality, including Longshots will be vital to any viable lottery strategy because, on a normal, 25% to 40% of the winning numbers are Longshots! You heard me right; 25% to 40%.
This has been true for every lottery within the US and Canada for over 2 decades. That's when I started analyzing them. The percentage varies from lottery to lottery as the size of the lotteries change. As an example, the percentage is higher for a 6/52 lottery than it really is for a 6/44 lottery. However, you can be assured that this lottery number pattern is as solid as a rock.
It really is simple for anyone to verify this. Well, maybe without a superb lottery software program, not so simple. Still, in either case, this really is the approach. List all of the lottery numbers that have Hit in the last 10 drawings for each official lottery drawing. Any lottery number not in the list must be a Longshot. Count the range of winning numbers within the next drawing that were Longshots. Do this for the entire lottery history. If you average the number of Longshots that have been winners, you will find the answer lies someplace between 25 and 40%.
How can you take advantage of these facts? Assuming that the answer you got was 30%, then, on a typical, 30% of the winning numbers within the next drawing could be Longshots. If you were playing a 6/48 lottery, consequently you should expect 1.8 winning numbers to be Longshots. (30% x 6 = 1.8) Simply, this will not happen every drawing but it is unwaveringly persistent over time. For example, in Lotto Texas, at least 1 of the winning numbers is a Longshot 89% of the time! Put simply, you can count on it.
This shows why the Hot Number Strategy practitioners wasted so much money. On the common, their play lists were coming up 1.8 numbers short. This must happen to be (and still is) very frustrating for the players using this weak lottery strategy.
Some of you are, undoubtedly, asking how you may take benefit from Longshot whenever you play. Continuing with the example above, it really is very simple. Let's say you elect to pare down a 48 number lottery to a 37 number play list with the assistance of lottery analysis software. Not really a bad strategy since you've got eliminated 9,946,728 wagers from play! Since you are expecting 30% of the winning lottery numbers to be Longshots, you make sure that 11 of those 37 lottery numbers within your play list are Longshots. (30%x37=11.1)
It's hard to imagine any lottery strategy that will not include Longshots. Serious lottery players everywhere use it. This is called playing the odds. In reality, that is what all successful gamblers do; play the odds.