[jerrytsai]

I second this. There's little (...or insufficient) reason to believe some numbers come up more often, so you assume any set of numbers may come up. Then any number combination may come up, so you may as well pick the number combinations which fewer people pick. At least one study has shown that numbers below 30 are picked more often than those above 30. So by picking numbers above 30 you increase the chance you do NOT split the jackpot if you win.

From an expected value perspective, however, lotteries are generally money LOSERS. Even at the estimated $1.5 billion for this Wednesday's drawing, the expected value of purchasing a ticket is NEGATIVE.

Here's why: the $1.5 billion is paid as an annuity-- the reported lump sum (present value) payment would be $930 million. Depending on your tax situation, if you live in the USA, you would lose about 40% of that to federal taxes, leaving you with about $558 million. In that it costs you $2 to purchase one number and the odds are 292 million to 1, you would need the take-home jackpot to be 2 times $292 million, or $584 million dollars before the expected value to be zero. (And this assumes a world in which jackpots cannot be split! And that you have no taxes beyond the federal tax!)

So the best play really is to NOT PLAY. From an expected value perspective, it probably would make sense to play when the jackpot is over $2 billion. It would depend on the frequency distribution of split jackpots.

So IF you're going to play, then you should try to minimize the chance you win a share of a split jackpot. But the rational play is to NOT PLAY AT ALL (well, at least not until the jackpot grows larger).