Born in the wagon of a traveling show was probably the bastard
mix of magician and advertising.
Stage magic being all about misdirection of focus away from
how the trick is performed, no wonder razzle dazzle is a
favorite ingredient of advertising. Selling the sizzle not
the gristle is how you make the cash flow these days.
Used to be, money management was the neglected step child of
the gaming system industry. A few lines at the end about
pacing yourself to your budget and doubling the wager if you
needed to win more. Ho hum boring.
Now things have changed. We see ads on how to win big money
at games with small payouts. Win ten grand at roulette, win a
quarter of a million at Pick-3, buy the system and find out
how!
The magician directs attention to the large amounts possible
glossing over the huge hole in the plan that can lead to ruin.
What is the secret to winning a quarter of a million at Pick-3
you ask? Walk into the 7/11 and put down $500.00 straight on
each number you want to play. Of course a system you pay
hundreds of dollars for will include the doubling steps for
building up from a small starting wager, but $500.00 straight
is the final answer for a quarter of a million dollar return
in a non pari-mutuel game.
The huge hole is the lack of a winning system to bring in
repeated wins. The magician directs your attention away from
the prediction system or the money management system's total
lack of a prediction system. How well that aspect of the
whole is going to perform gets little mention if any.
Mathematically speaking a winning Pick-3 system that plays at
a profit over time is impossible because the state only
returns fifty cents on the dollar. Odds are a thousand to one
and a one dollar straight play wins $500.00 so you can't buy a
win that would be profitable.
The best system I've seen, Mastermind-3 can hover along at
break even for a while and even be ahead of the game if it
hits straight early. Trouble is you're playing between 36 and
50 numbers so you'd get only five or eight doubled plays
before having to start over again.
Let's say, you're playing 50 tickets and one hits straight...
Allowing you to play $2. on 50 tickets to win $1,000.
Allowing you to play $4. to win $2,000.
Allowing you to play $8. to win $4,000.
Allowing you to play $16. to win $8,000.
Allowing you to play $32. to win $16,000.
Allowing you to play $64. to win $32,000.
Allowing you to play $128. to win $64,000.
Allowing you to play $256. to win $128,000.
Allowing you to play $512. to win $256,000.
And there we have our quarter of a million provided we have an
unbroken chain of TEN straight hits within a range of five
draws each. Feeling lucky? How many times have you had Ten
straight wins within a 45 day stretch?
We can always play 25 numbers instead of 50 giving us half as
many chances to win for ten days, have you ever had ten
straight wins within a 90 day stretch?
You can even play games with the numbers trying for a better
jumping off point. Give four a $4. play, four a $2. play, and
eight a $1. play straight plus a .50 box bet on all, the
theory being a box win will pay for the day if you don't win
big.
There are many ways to flex your money management based on the
first win paying for the next, though I must confess the idea
of carrying $25,000.00 to the 7/11 each day trying to win
$250,000.00 is already making me nervous.
Paper charts, where you enter the last draw and look down or
across to see what to play, how can that work? Maybe the guy
who wrote the system knew how to make it work, but like the
wizard holds out a secret ingredient from the spell so it
won't be as effective if it works at all.
Another point glossed over is paying taxes on each step of the
winning system. Think the lottery is going to hand you a
check the next day for those amounts above without stripping
off taxes, think again. Maybe you'll have to add some more
layers or run to hundreds of 7/11's collecting one $500.00 win
at a time. Good records might get some of that tax money back
if you lose, but you still have to front that amount or add
layers to keep playing.
You might look at the account above and say you'd be happy
with the $128,000.00 or your significant other would kill if
you spent $64,000.00 trying to win Pick-3, even if it was the
state's money. No matter it is always the last play you plan
to make that loses or am I being too fatalistic?
No, when it comes to doubling up on Pick-3 after a win a short
series would be best provided you have a good system that
clusters wins, say after a dry spell.
Did you know you can double Pick-6? If your Pick-6 pays a
fair prize (say $10.) for a three number win, you can track
your combinations and when you've spent $9. on one without a
win you start putting $2. on it. This system can lead to ruin
with a bigger loss because it breaks down before probability
suggests payback, but can work as often as not if playing all
the numbers on eight or nine well constructed lines.
Lottery is designed not to be won so it takes a good system
and a healthy dose of luck to reach the winner's circle.
