Have you ever considered starting your own lotto club at work or just want to play like a club? The main reason of pooling resources is to get greater coverage and yet most clubs play only a few numbers on a full wheel. It takes 81 combinations to play a Pick-6, 9 number full wheel, and it takes 924 to play a 12 number full wheel.

Over the years I've heard players try to claim they could do as well as a lotto club by buying abbreviated 12# wheels, but even a guaranteed 5 if 6 in 12# wheel requires 42 tickets to cover. In other words, if all six of the winning numbers are among the 12 being wheeled, you are guaranteed one ticket with five of the winning numbers on it.

Sometimes when you are looking for one thing, you find something else. Here I was making and testing various wheels to try to bring down the cost of playing for a 5 number win when I found I had 94% coverage of the 42 combination wheel in only 30 tickets and a real extra kicker in additional coverage to boot !

The following 94% open cover of 5if6in12n30c also covers . . . 3if3 100%, 3if4 100%, 3if5 100%, 3if6 100%, 4if4 78%, 4if5 100%, 4if6 100%. Plus and now get this ! If you have all 6 of the winning numbers among your 12 on the wheel and you fail to get the 5# winning ticket (a mere 6% possibility) you will get at least 10, 4# winning tickets instead !

To play this wheel, simply replace my pointer numbers with your best 12 numbers.

Pointer Numbers: 01-02-03-04-05-06-07-08-09-10-11-12
01) 01 02 03 04 10 11  02) 01 02 03 05 08 12  03) 01 02 04 06 07 12
04) 01 02 04 06 08 09  05) 01 02 05 07 09 11  06) 01 02 05 07 10 12
07) 01 02 06 08 10 12  08) 01 03 04 05 06 07  09) 01 03 04 05 08 09
10) 01 03 06 09 11 12  11) 01 03 07 08 09 10  12) 01 04 05 09 10 12
13) 01 04 07 08 11 12  14) 01 05 06 08 10 11  15) 01 06 07 09 10 11
16) 02 03 04 05 08 11  17) 02 03 04 07 09 12  18) 02 03 05 06 09 10
19) 02 03 06 07 08 11  20) 02 04 05 06 11 12  21) 02 04 05 07 08 10
22) 02 04 06 07 09 10  23) 02 08 09 10 11 12  24) 03 04 06 08 09 11
25) 03 04 06 08 10 12  26) 03 05 07 08 11 12  27) 03 05 09 10 11 12
28) 03 06 07 10 11 12  29) 04 05 07 09 10 11  30) 05 06 07 08 09 12

Let's see now, 30 combinations giving us 94% of the same prize winning coverage as 42 combinations at 2/3 rd's the cost to play, this is why open covers are the best kept secret of the lottery.

New News ! Fellow lottery enthusiast Nick Koutras decided to do this wheel one turn better and created the following 88% 5if6 cover in only 24 combinations, which (thanks to a bit of redundancy) I was able to further reduce to 22 combinations.

The following 88% open cover of 5if6in12n22c also covers . . . 3if3 100%, 3if4 100%, 3if5 100%, 3if6 100%, 4if4 67%, 4if5 100%, 4if6 100%. PLUS ! If you have all 6 of the winning numbers among your 12 on this wheel and you fail to get the 5# winning ticket (a 12% possibility) you will get at least 9, 4# winning tickets instead !

Pointer Numbers: 01-02-03-04-05-06-07-08-09-10-11-12
01) 01 02 03 09 11 12  02) 01 02 03 04 06 10  03) 01 02 04 07 08 11
04) 01 02 05 06 08 09  05) 01 02 05 07 10 12  06) 01 03 04 05 08 12
07) 01 03 05 06 07 11  08) 01 03 07 08 09 10  09) 01 04 05 09 10 11
10) 01 04 06 07 09 12  11) 01 06 08 10 11 12  12) 02 03 04 05 07 09
13) 02 03 05 08 10 11  14) 02 03 06 07 08 12  15) 02 04 05 06 11 12
16) 02 04 08 09 10 12  17) 02 06 07 09 10 11  18) 03 04 06 08 09 11
19) 03 04 07 10 11 12  20) 03 05 06 09 10 12  21) 04 05 06 07 08 10
22) 05 07 08 09 11 12

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