Throughout the world, serious lottery players are searching for lottery number patterns that may provide them an advantage. There is just one such lottery strategy which is proven to provide them an advantage. It utilizes lottery number patterns that exist in most lotteries. They may be called Longshots.

In the event that you don't know what Longshots are, we will start with some history as well as a definition. A couple 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. Along with it came the normal 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 in the last 10 drawings. This tends to enhance your prospects of winning the lottery.

Initially, it sounds plausible enough. Still, let's think about this. Implicit in this strategy will be the opposite side of the coin. Any lottery numbers that have not Hit within the last 10 drawings are considered a rather dubious pick. Hence, these lottery numbers were named Longshots. The name persists to this day and I even use it. However, I do not malign the usage of Longshots. The truth is, I applaud them. Including Longshots in a play list is definitely an absolute necessity for virtually every viable lottery strategy.

For all of those lottery players who got caught up within the Hot Number Strategy hype, this was, without doubt, a very expensive lesson. A whole lot of money was spent with little to show for it.

Excluding Longshots resulted in a Hot Number Strategy disaster. The truth is, including Longshots will be vital to any viable lottery strategy because, on the common, 25% to 40% of the winning numbers are Longshots! You heard me right; 25% to 40%.

This has been true for every lottery in the US and Canada for over twenty years. That is 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's for a 6/44 lottery. Yet, you can rest assured that this lottery number pattern is as solid as a rock.

It is simple for anyone to verify this. Well, maybe without a great lottery software program, not so simple. Still, either way, this really is the approach. List all the lottery numbers which have Hit within the last 10 drawings for each lottery drawing. Any lottery number not within the list has to be a Longshot. Count the number of winning numbers within the next drawing who were Longshots. Do this for the whole lottery history. If you average the range of Longshots that were winners, you shall find the answer lies someplace between 25 and 40%.

How can you take advantage of this information? Assuming that the answer you got was 30%, then, on the regular, 30% of the winning numbers in the next drawing could be Longshots. If you were playing a 6/48 lottery, this means you should expect 1.8 winning numbers to be Longshots. (30% x 6 = 1.8) Simply, this does not happen every drawing but it really is unwaveringly persistent over-time. For example, in trusted lotto dealers Texas, at least 1 of the winning numbers is a Longshot 89% of the time! To put it differently, you may count on it.

This shows why the Hot Number Strategy practitioners wasted so much cash. On an average, their play lists were coming up 1.8 numbers short. This must have been (but still is) very frustrating for the players using this weak lottery strategy.

Several of you are, no doubt, asking how you will take good thing about Longshot when you play. Continuing with the example above, it is very simple. Let's say you choose to pare down a 48 number lottery to a 37 number play list with the assistance of lottery analysis software. Not a bad strategy since you have eliminated 9,946,728 wagers from play! Since you are expecting 30% of the winning lottery numbers to be Longshots, you make certain that 11 of those 37 lottery numbers in your play list are Longshots. (30%x37=11.1)

It really is 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's what all successful gamblers do; play the odds.