Lottery Online: A Guide
With the advent of online lottery sales, you no longer need to travel to your local lottery store or gas station to buy a ticket. In fact, you can purchase state and Powerball tickets online from home or even your mobile phone. Currently, online lottery sales are legal in 45 US states and Washington, D.C. In addition to state-operated lottery sites, third-party couriers such as Jackpocket have also received the go-ahead to purchase and sell tickets on behalf of players in some states.
The first US state to offer lotto tickets online was Illinois in 2012, and since then other states have followed suit, as well as international lotteries such as EuroJackpot and SuperLotto Plus. Some lotteries allow you to play both local and national games through their website, while others will only sell local games like Powerball and Mega Millions.
It’s worth checking out the odds of your favorite lottery before buying a ticket. The chances of winning a jackpot are the same whether you play a single number or a combination, but larger prizes tend to roll over more frequently than smaller ones, making it possible for you to win a big prize in a short amount of time.
If you want to improve your odds of winning, consider playing in a lottery pool or syndicate. These groups of players pool their money to purchase a larger number of tickets, and when one of them wins the lottery, the prize is split among members based on how many tickets they bought. Romanian-born mathematician Stefan Mandel once used this method to win 14 consecutive lottery games, netting more than $1.3 million in winnings.