Types Of Lottery
Lottery scams are unfortunately common around the world, with scammers using evolving tactics to try and trick innocent victims into parting with their money.
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If you believe you have received a lottery scam – whether it's via post, email, social media, phone call or SMS message – you should not respond with any personal or financial details.
There are a few sure signs that you have received a scam, including (but not limited to):
- Receiving a message/letter/email that claims to be from a lottery official, containing numerous spelling and grammatical errors
- Receiving correspondence that contains multiple lottery organisation logos and false signatures
- Being pressured into disclosing personal and/or financial information to the scammer in a hurry – this is a common tactic to intimidate victims into acting without having chance to speak to others to debate whether or not it is genuine
- Being told that you have won a prize but need to pay some form of 'release fee' in order to receive your winnings
- Receiving correspondence that begins with 'Dear Winner' or 'Dear Customer'
- Poor quality graphics/imagery and photocopies hastily put together to try and appear genuine
- Emails coming from free webmail addresses (such as @hotmail, @outlook, @live, @yahoo etc.) – official emails would always come from an email address under the domain of a lottery operator
No lottery operator would ever contact you in the ways described above.
The most important thing to remember is that if you have not bought a lottery ticket (or won a free ticket as a result of a previously purchased ticket), it is impossible to win a prize.
Top tip: If you have received a potential scam and have sent your financial details in response, you should contact your bank immediately to inform them of what has happened.
Different Types of Scams
There are multiple different ways in which a scam can present itself, and some can be more convincing than others. Take a look at the types of scams brought to our attention most often.
SMS Message Scams
SMS message scams are increasingly common. Scammers are able to make a text message look legitimate easily, so it’s important to be cautious if you receive a message that tells you you’ve won a prize.
If you are expecting an SMS notification relating to a win, this is different. Some websites and organisations may offer SMS alerts in the event of a win, however this is something you would likely have to opt-in to when creating your account. If you haven’t created an account anywhere and specified that you’d like to receive SMS alerts, it is most likely a scam.
You should never tap any links in messages that you receive that you are cautious of. If there is a chance that you think the message is genuine, you should contact the lottery operator that you believe to have sent the message, to ask them if it’s genuine.
If you are not expecting a message, it is likely a scam. Some examples include messages that tell you that you have won a number of “free tickets” and that you need to respond with certain details to receive them. This is not a genuine lottery operation and you should never agree to buy tickets in this way, as they likely do not exist.
Email Scams
One of the long-running types of scam is the Email scam. These can come in many forms and, depending on the type of scam, they can certainly appear genuine.
The safest thing to do if you are concerned that you’ve received a fraudulent email is to not click or follow any links within the email. No matter how legitimate they may appear, the safest thing to do is to contact the lottery operator that the email has allegedly come from to check if it is genuine.
If you receive an email that tells you you’ve won a prize and then asks you to fill out numerous fields of information, it is a scam. No official lottery operator would operate in this way. A genuine lottery would contact you using the contact details you provided when creating your account and arrange a prize payment appointment, if you had indeed won a prize. If you don’t have an online lottery account, any emails telling you that you’ve won a prize online are fake.
If you have received a scam email, it is recommended that you block the sender to prevent future emails from them. Do not send any details to a scammer.
Social Media Scams
Perhaps the more wide-reaching types of scams can come from Social Media. This is due to them being easy to share, and the vast number of profiles and accounts that scammers can try their luck with.
Receiving a message on social media from someone claiming to be an ‘agent’ of a lottery organisation, or from a business page with very few followers and a few suspicious-looking posts, is cause for caution. Under no circumstances would a lottery operator ask their staff to contact users from personal accounts – if you receive a message stating such, it is a scam.
National Lotteries around the world are regulated and licensed, which means there are certain methods and procedures when they need to contact customers.
Lottery operators are highly unlikely to contact users out of the blue on social media, unless they are running promotions or contests that you enter via social media. In addition, if you message an official lottery page with an enquiry, then you can normally expect a response – this is not a scam. Most official lottery pages on social media have some kind of verification tick or badge to show that they are who they say they are.
Telephone Scams
There are a couple of different types of common lottery scams via telephone, both of which can be daunting.
Being Informed of a 'Win' by Phone
Similar in nature to all other types of scam, telephone scammers often try to overwhelm victims by informing them about their 'wins' and quickly leading on to requesting details from you to 'arrange payment of the prize'.
No lottery operator would ask for banking details over the phone. If you had genuinely won a jackpot prize, an official lottery operator would have to go through validation procedures with you, and they would most likely arrange a prize payment appointment in person (depending on the lottery operator and their procedures).
If you receive such a call and are being pressured to provide details, hang up the call. Blocking these numbers should prevent them from contacting you again.
Being Offered Discount/Bundles of Lottery Tickets by Phone
An increasingly common type of scam involves scammers phoning victims and informing them that they have the option (or have qualified) to buy multiple lottery tickets at a reduced price, or for the price of one. This is a scam.
No lottery operator would attempt to sell tickets over the phone. You should never attempt to buy tickets over the phone, as there are no tickets – it is purely an attempt to gain personal and/or financial details from you.
Some scammers have become more sophisticated in their fraudulent operations by creating or copying official-looking websites. The reason behind this is to reassure victims over the phone that it is genuine, as they will provide you with a web address to visit, which at first glance will appear official.
Depending on the scammer and their operations, if they have managed to acquire your name and phone number, they may direct you to a “Winners” page on the fake website, which would list your name, in an attempt to convince you that it is genuine. Again, no lottery operator would publish details of winners before they had in fact been verified as the winners, and only if the winner opted to go public.
As always, the safest thing to do if you receive a phonecall stating that you have won free lottery tickets is to hang up the call and block the number.
Impersonation of Jackpot Winners
These types of scams typically come around soon after a big jackpot has been won and the winner has opted to go public with their win.
Unfortunately this type of scam can come in many forms, such as email, SMS and social media. It typically involves a scammer pretending to be a lottery winner, using images of them and a fabricated story about how they have won the jackpot and want to share it with a number of people on social media, and so on.
If you receive a message from someone claiming to be a lottery jackpot winner, it is most likely a scam. Unless you know the person who has won a jackpot and they are genuinely offering to share their winnings with you, it is unfortunately a scam.
Direct Mail/Postal Scams
While these types of scam are less common, they do still exist and they can be equally as daunting as any other kind of lottery scam.
Direct mail scams typically involve a letter in the post, which often contain a number of lottery logos (which are usually poorly edited/stretched), while appearing poor in quality (sometimes even photocopied) and often have numerous grammatical errors. They can often include words such as 'International Lottery' 'Worldwide lottery' 'Microsoft lottery' among others. In some instances they also combine different countries to make it appear like a collaboration, such as 'USA UK International Sweepstake' or something along those lines.
It is highly unlikely that a lottery operator would opt to contact you via post in the event of a genuine win, however if you are in any doubt, you should contact your lottery operator for confirmation. If the letter claims to be from an international lottery, or an operator that you have not heard of and have not played through, it is a scam.
The common theme that runs alongside all types of lottery scam is that if you have not bought a lottery ticket, you cannot win a prize.
Odds and probability are two different terms. They are not mathematically equivalent. Knowing the difference between the two is crucial for you as a lottery player.
Perhaps the main reason for the confusion is the fact that they are synonymous.
In addition to that, people are used to encountering such terms being used interchangeably in conversations, internet sites, and published materials. Ronald Wasserstein of the American Statistical Association had a good catch of that occasion in one article in The New York Times.
But let’s set one thing straight. In Statistical Science, odds and probability are two different mathematical terms. I always refer to odds and probability as two distinct words.
So, let’s talk about the difference and why they are so essential to all lottery players like you.
The definition of probability
Probability is the measurement of the likelihood of an event’s occurrence. The value is expressed between 0 and 1, where 0 indicates impossibility, and 1 means certainty.
So when the value is between 0 and 1, we usually expressed this in decimal terms.
As the word probability sounds a bit too technical, some writers prefer to use a simpler word. For instance, we use the more comfortable term “percentage” to represent “chances” as an alternative to probability.
So when an event A has a 25% chances of occurring, we express the probability as follows:
P(event A) = 25% = 1/4 = 0.25
How you express probability may depend on your audience. So if you talk to a group of highly technical people, the usage of decimals or fraction won’t be much of an issue. But to a group of laymen, I believe, a percentage is a much friendlier approach.
The definition of odds
Odds refers to the ratio. There are two flavors of which we express odds:
- Odds against = The number of ways an event does not occur against the number of ways an event does occur.
- Odds in favor = The number of ways an event occur against the number of ways an event does not occur
On this page, we will make use of the latter approach.
So let’s say an event A will occur 25 times out of 100 total events.
Therefore the odds in favor of A are 25 to 75.
Odds in favor of A = 25 / 75 = 1/3 or 1:3
- 25 refers to the numbers by which event A will occur.
- 75 refers to the numbers by which event A will not occur.
As you can see, from a layman’s point of view, odds are the ratio of success to failure.
From the perspective of the lottery, odds refer to the ratio of winning to losing.
The Visual Difference
Let’s say we have four marbles.
For illustrative purposes, we will focus on the red marble.
First, let’s calculate the probability:
P(red marble) = 1 / 4 or 25%
So when you put all those marbles in a bag, and you are told to pick one with your eyes closed, the probability that you will get the red one is 25%.
Now, let’s calculate the odds:
As I have explained above, odds refer to the ratio of success to failure.
So in this particular example, the odds refer to the ratio of red marble occurring successfully to the number of times red marble will fail to occur.
Therefore:
Odds in favor of red marble = 1:3
So let’s recap:
Probability of red marble = 1/4 or 25%
Odds in favor of red marble = 1/3 or 1:3
Did you see the difference?
Now, the discrepancy may be too tiny. But when the number of events gets bigger such as in the lottery, knowing the difference takes a significant role in your lotto playing strategy.
Odds and Probability in the Lottery
All combinations in the lottery have an equal probability of getting drawn because there’s only one way to win the jackpot.
So does that mean 5-10-15-20-25-30 is equally likely?
Well, yes. That’s because theoretically:
P(5-10-15-20-25-30) = One way to win the jackpot / All possible combinations
The same calculations apply to 1-2-3-4-5-6, or 2-4-6-8-10-12. The same formula applies to all combinations.
But ask yourself, are you willing to play the 1-2-3-4-5-6 combination and spend $2 on it?
You’ll probably answer no. That’s because your gut feeling indicates that such a combination is unlikely to occur in a lottery draw.
Your feeling is much stronger than your logical thinking. Because if you stand up firmly and say 1-2-3-4-5-6 possesses the same probability as any other combinations, then why do you worry?
You see, a strategy based on “gut feeling” doesn’t add up. You’ve got to explain things from a mathematical perspective.
In this article, I would like to propose a way to explain that “gut feeling” in terms of number composition.
Combinations are not created equally.
You have to understand that a combination is a composition of numbers.
And composition matters.
The best way to explain number composition is through “combinatorial patterns.”
Let’s ask this question.
What is the probability of a 6-even-0-odd pattern occurring in a lotto 649 draw?
P(6-even-0-odd) = 0.0096251266464032
What is the probability of 3-odd-3-even number patterns occurring?
P(3-odds-3-evens) = 0.33289911709365
Here’s the data table showing the probability of the two patterns:
How do we understand the difference between the two combinations?
It’s simple. The key is to understand the difference between odds and probability.
There are 4,655,200 ways you can combine 3-odd-3-even combinations.
So if you play 3-odd-3-even combination, 33 in every 100 draws will put you in 1 to 4.6 million advantage rather than 1 to 14 million.
Therefore your ratio of success to failure is thus:
In comparison, 6-even combinations will give you the odds of 1 to 134,595, but be aware that this advantage will happen only once in 100 draws.
That means if you play 2-4-6-8-10-12, then expect that your chance to win the jackpot only comes around every 104 draws.
And if you play the 3-odd-3-even combination, you have the opportunity to match the winning combination every 3 draws.
Surely, this approach will not “increase your chance” of winning the jackpot. It’s all about “how not to be mathematically wrong.”
That’s why Lotterycodex exists to help you know how not to be wrong with the power of mathematics. We’re talking about a certain mathematical advantage.
As a lotto player, I don’t think you are willing to spend money on a combination that will only go down the drain for the majority of the draws.
So while all combinations exhibit the same probability, Lotterycodex suggests that all lotto players take advantage of combinatorial patterns and get the best shot possible.
Numbers don’t lie.
And that’s how probability theory can help improve your skill for picking better combinations.
The Lottery Strategy
Understanding the difference between odds and probability is very crucial to the lottery players.
In lotterycodex, I use probability to forecast the likely outcome of the lottery. And I do that from the context of number patterns given the law of large numbers.
So to set things straight, we cannot predict the “exact” combination. No one can do that.
Nj Lottery Tickets Types
Some people take it from a different context. And that’s how the confusion starts.
All in all, thanks to probability theory. Thanks to the great mathematicians who invented all these mathematical tools for us to enjoy. See my post How to Use Math to Win the Lottery.
Kinds Of Lottery Tickets
Without probability, a mathematical strategy is not possible.
Types Of Lottery Scratch Offs
I invite you to check out the free lottery guide where I list down all the bad, the worst and the best number combinations in the lottery according to combinatorics and probability theory.