More likely to win lottery with quick pick

That might not seem like a big deal. If you split the cash value of $930 million with one other person, that's still a $465 million jingle. The problem is the "expected value" of your ticket. With one jackpot winner (as well as a number of lesser prizes) the expected value of a $2 Powerball ticket is $3.50, a solid investment.

But dividing the jackpot cash in two, the expected value of your ticket drops to $1.91, less than the $2 you shelled out in the first place. Split it three ways and your expected value drops below $1.40, a return on investment of about negative 30 percent.

So how can you avoid splitting the prize with someone else?

For one thing, don't be lazy and take a bunch of Quick Pick tickets. Quick Pick works by giving you combinations of numbers automatically so you don't have to fill in the little bubbles. Powerball works as a drawing of five balls from a bin of 69 white balls and one red ball from a separate bin of 26.

The problem is it's impossible to avoid getting duplicate sets of numbers, which don't help at all. If you go all in and buy 20,000 tickets, you have a 50/50 chance of having repeat sets. And that's among the nearly 300 million possible combinations! As pointed out in the New York Daily News, state and federal governments, as well as lottery officials, have a vested interest in selling you duplicate tickets.

Even if you're not putting your life savings (and then some) into the lottery, you're still better off picking your numbers by hand. That's because people tend to cluster their number choices, and Quick Pick doesn't let you avoid those common numbers. If you pick all the common numbers, if those are the randomly selected winners, you'll be sharing the prize.

Powerball doesn't publish the distribution of numbers that players pick, but it's possible to get a glimpse by looking at the drawings that have corresponded with jackpot winners. Powerball does of course publish the numbers in all drawings and the Texas Lotto Report records the reported jackpot amount for each drawing. By combining these two, we can subset the number combinations that won a jackpot compared to those that didn't. We used a similar methodology as described here.

As you'd expect, the distribution of numbers drawn on days when the jackpot was not won is pretty even (with the caveat that Powerball has changed the number of balls in the hopper over the years, so the higher end is naturally lighter).

People don't pick randomly. There are distinct patterns in the choices they make. They play their age, their children's birthdays, even the numbers they find in a fortune cookie.

With 69 balls in play (ignoring the red powerball for now), each ball has an even chance of being drawn. But as you can see from the distribution, winners tend to be numbers below 30. That's not because those numbers are drawn more, but because people pick them more. There are only 12 months in the year and up to 31 days in each month, so people playing birthdays are all clumped together here.

So do the extra leg work to pick your own numbers and don't just go with your kid's birthday. You can't increase your chances of winning big, but you can make sure that if you do, you have less of a chance to share the prize.

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  Powerball jackpot swells to $1.5B    9:36 AM ET Wed, 13 Jan 2016 | 01:20

CORRECTION: An earlier version misstated the drop in return on investment when the winning number is split three ways.

When you fill in a Powerball playslip, there are two ways you can choose your numbers: you can either pick your own or you can opt for a Quick Pick. Both options are pretty simple, but a Powerball Quick Pick is the fastest way to play, as the store’s lottery terminal will randomly select your numbers for you. There is a common misconception that the odds of winning differ depending on whether you choose your own numbers or go for a Quick Pick. That is not true; your chances of winning are exactly the same in both cases.

To play a Quick Pick, you just have to select the option on your playslip instead of marking the numbers you want to play. After you’ve done that, just hand the slip to the cashier and they will take it from there. In some cases you can just ask the cashier directly for a Quick Pick for a specific draw and they will do the rest. A random number generator inside the lottery terminal will then produce five main numbers between 1 and 69 and a Powerball between 1 and 26, and these numbers will be printed on your ticket.

A Powerball Quick Pick is known as an Easy Pick in some participating states, but it works exactly the same way. Here are the pros and cons of using Quick Picks:

• Quick Picks offer the fastest way to play in-store, as you don’t even need to fill out a playslip. You can just ask the cashier for a Quick Pick entry.
• While the odds of winning are the same as choosing your own numbers, there is more chance you won’t have to share the jackpot if you win it, as your numbers will be completely random and not based on commonly used selections and patterns.
• Players who use the same numbers every week may feel like they’ve missed out if they don’t enter a particular draw and their numbers come up. There is no chance of this happening with a Quick Pick, as your numbers will be different every time.

• You have no input into which numbers are selected, as they are picked at random. This means that you cannot select your line using Powerball statistics or meaningful numbers or patterns.
• Checking whether you’ve won on a Quick Pick can take a bit longer compared to playing your own numbers, as you’re less likely to remember a completely random line so will need your ticket to hand.
• You have to stick with the first line of numbers you are given. You cannot return Powerball tickets once they are printed, so if you do not like the numbers you are given, you cannot change them.

Selecting Your Own Numbers

This is the traditional way of playing the lottery, where you mark the numbers you want to enter on a Powerball playslip and then hand that to the cashier to print your ticket. See the pros and cons of choosing your own numbers below:

• You have complete control over your entry, so you can pick your numbers using any method you want. Whether you use important dates, certain patterns, or you base your selection on statistics from previous draws, it is all up to you.
• Playing your own numbers on a regular basis makes it easier to check whether you’ve won, as it is likely that you will be able to remember your numbers soon after you start playing.
• You have more flexibility when it comes to entering multiple draws. If you want to play for several weeks in advance, you can choose the same numbers for each draw, different ones every time, or a mixture of both. With Quick Picks you will usually have to use the same numbers for every draw.

• It takes longer. During busy periods, particularly when the jackpot approaches record amounts, you may have to first queue to fill in a playslip and then queue again to purchase your ticket.
• There is more chance that you will have to share a jackpot if you use common numbers or patterns. For example, many players use birthdays or other important dates, which restricts the pool of numbers to between 1 and 31. While your odds of winning remain the same, the chances that someone else has chosen the same line are greater.
• There is margin for error when filling out a playslip. It can be easy to mark a wrong number or forget to mark the Power Play box, and once your ticket is printed, you are not entitled to a refund.

Odds of Winning

Around 70 to 80 percent of Powerball players use Quick Pick tickets, and the same percentage of winning entries are Quick Picks. This shows that regardless of whether players choose to select their own numbers or not, the odds of winning remain the same. Whether you include meaningful numbers on your Powerball ticket or leave it all to chance with a random entry, your odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, with the chances of winning a prize in any category set at 1 in 25.

It is also worth noting that the cost of entry remains the same whether you choose your own numbers or opt for a Quick Pick, and in both instances you can add Power Play to your ticket. Some of the biggest winners in history have used Quick Picks, including Wisconsin’s Manuel Franco - who landed $768 million in March 2019.