Win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers drawn. With three draws per week, every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 7:29 PM PT, there are plenty of chances to win. On drawing days, there is a draw break from 7:29-7:30 PM when you cannot purchase or validate tickets. Megabucks Slot Odds Strange as it may seem, there is no official information about the probability of winning the Megabucks jackpot. Some casinos say that the player has one chance out of 50 million, while others claim that this is one chance of 17 million.
Oregon Megabucks 6/48 lotto started in November 1989 and has kept the same number format since the beginning. It has accumulated more than 2,400 drawings in that time which makes it easy to work with using the strategy charts. The game gives two plays for a dollar which cuts the cost of using Gail Howard's Balanced Wheeling Systems by half. Players choose six numbers from 1 to 48 to play Megabucks. The game draws three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. The jackpot starts at $1 million and increases until someone wins.
The odds of winning the first prize jackpot are one in 12,271,512 (or 6,135,756 at two games for a dollar). These are great odds when compared to Mega Millions jackpot odds of one in 302,575,350 or Powerball jackpot odds of one in 292 million. However, the best bet in Oregon is Oregon Win for Life 4/77 with relatively low odds of only one in 1,353,275.
Below are free lotto tips to help you play the game smarter and win the lottery, taken from Gail Howard's lotto book, Lottery Master Guide. This is just a sample, and the book explains all of Smart Luck's successful methods of number selection in great detail with examples of patterns shown throughout. It is a great starting place for any lotto player.
Advantage Gold software makes all the charts for this game, to automate the process of choosing the best numbers to play.
Lottery numbers are randomly drawn. But randomly drawn numbers form patterns that can be tracked and used to our advantage. Having carefully analyzed all the drawings in past lotto results of more than 200 different lotto games worldwide, with histories going back as far as 1955, we have verified the following incredibly simple rule:
The key to Smart Luck's successful lotto number selection methods is playing the probabilities. If you play a pattern that occurs only five percent of the time, you can expect that pattern to lose 95 percent of the time, giving you no chance to win 95 percent of the time. So, don't buck the probabilities.
When you select your Oregon Megabucks Lotto numbers, try to have a relatively even mix of odd and even numbers. All odd numbers or all even numbers are rarely drawn, occurring less than one percent of the time. The best mix is to have 2/4, 4/2 or 3/3, which means two odd and four even, or four odd and two even, or three odd and three even. One of these three patterns will occur in 79 percent of the drawings.
Winning numbers are usually spread across the entire number field. If we take a number field and cut it in half, we have the low half and the high half. In a 48-number game like Oregon Mega Bucks, numbers 1 to 24 would be in the low half, and numbers 25 to 48 would be in the high half. All high numbers or all low numbers are rarely drawn, occurring only two percent of the time. The best mix is to have 2/4, 4/2 or 3/3, which means two high and four low, or four high and two low, or three high and three low. Winning number groups with these three patterns occur in 78 percent of all drawings.
Look at a list of past winning numbers for Oregon Megabucks lottery results, and you'll see, more often than not, that one or more of the number groups is not represented. For example, in the combination 5-14-17-32-38-46, there are no 20's. Tracking and studying Number Groups can help you decide which group to omit and which group to give extra heavy play.
List the number of games skipped (games out) since the last hit (win) for each of the winning numbers during the last five games. Then mark the number of times each skip occurred. If any skip from 0 to 5 did not occur, play the Lotto numbers that are out that many games. (Help working with lotto games skipped.)
After you choose six numbers you want to play, add them together and make sure that the sum of the six numbers adds up to somewhere between 113 and 181. Sums that fall within that range will account for over 70 percent of all lottery jackpots won.
In Megabucks 6/48, on average, one lottery number will be a repeat hit from the last drawing 61 percent of the time.
Numbers that have been out (losers) for five games or less account for about half of the winning numbers drawn. Losing numbers that have been out ten games or less account for 80 percent of all the winning numbers. This tells us that hot numbers are more likely to hit, but don't forget to include at least one long shot in your group of 6.
It is difficult to know when a cold number will end a long losing streak. If you play a number every drawing because you think it is due, you could be chasing it for many months. (Number 45 in New York Lotto sat out 100 drawings before it finally hit.) Although, when a number has been out for 70 games or so, it might be worth chasing.
Several of the 109 Lotto jackpots won with Smart Luck lottery systems were won by groups of people who pooled their money. Sharing the ticket cost with others stretches your Lotto budget. By playing with a group, you can afford to buy more lottery tickets—and play larger wheeling systems—than you could (or should) by yourself. Draw up an agreement and have the members of your pool sign it.
When you form a Lotto pool, your group is also pooling its aggregate luck. A jackpot could happen because of the luck just one member brings to your pool. Select your partners carefully. Share your luck with winners, not losers. Avoid negative people. Not only are they unlucky, but they dampen enthusiasm and drain energy from others. You want to enhance your own luck, not dilute its strength. One quick way to tell winners from losers is simply to ask them: 'Do you think you are a lucky person?' Many people quickly admit, 'I'm unlucky. I never win anything.' They won't bring good luck to your group either.
No one should play games of chance out of desperation because they need the winnings. The needy have a greater fear of losing the hard-earned money they gamble with. It is just one of life's dirty tricks that the very fear of losing blocks the winning forces. Thoughts are charged with energy, especially when triggered by emotion. Fear attracts exactly that which one fears. A strong desire for a goal that is charged with positive energy, attracts a positive response, especially when every effort is made to attain that goal.
After you choose the best numbers with number strategies, you can improve your odds of winning larger prizes by using lotto wheeling systems. It's simple, easy as A-B-C to wheel pick-6 lotto numbers using the Balanced Wheels in the Wheel Six Gold lottery software. You get a minimum win guarantee with every wheel!
Balanced Wheeling® Systems allow you to bet a large group of numbers (more than 5), play scientific combinations of that group of numbers, and get a specific minimum win guarantee. Balanced Wheels® force all the winning numbers that are in your group to come together to give you at least one prize if some or all of the winning numbers are in your chosen group.
It's true that the more numbers you wheel, the easier it is to trap the winning numbers in your chosen group. But to get the most leverage for your money, the optimum number of numbers to wheel is not more than four or five numbers over HALF the numbers in your game. For Oregon Megabucks, its best to wheel less than about 29 of the total 48 numbers. Otherwise, you'll be spending MORE money chasing a SMALLER guaranteed prize. You benefit more by wheeling a carefully selected group of lotto numbers.
Any one wheeling system that covers ALL the numbers in the game is too spread out, making the win guarantee not worth the wager. There are smart ways to wheel all the numbers in the game by using Trap-by-Overlap and other wheeling strategies covered on pages 137 to 142 in the Lottery Master Guide.
Most of Smart Luck's lottery winners used a Balanced Wheel® in addition to her Smart Luck® number selection methods. You can use a FREE interactive Balanced Wheel® System that won multiple jackpots. Read about our lottery winners, too. And when you win a jackpot with Smart Luck lotto systems, tell us about it so you can be added to Gail Howard's growing list of winners. If you don't want your name publicized, we will honor that.
Lotto players who select their lottery numbers thoughtlessly or foolishly are destined to lose even before the drawing takes place. By knowing which number combinations and patterns to avoid, you'll have an advantage over such players—and save money, too.
Many players like to bet the numbers that have won someone else a big jackpot, and by doing so, they are almost guaranteed NOT to win one themselves. In Megabucks 6/48, with three drawings a week, a set of 6 numbers has a chance of being drawn once every 78,663 years!!! This should also answer the question we are so often asked, 'Shouldn't I keep playing the same set of numbers every week because they are due to hit sometime?'
Six consecutive numbers have never been drawn in any state or international lotto game. Smart Luck has all the drawing results for more than 190 state and international lottery games, going back more than fifty years! Even five consecutive numbers is a very rare occurrence that, in most Lotto games, has never happened once.
Never choose all six numbers from one number group, such as all single digits, or all teens, or all 20's, etc. All six winning numbers drawn from one group is highly unlikely.
The most popular set of numbers most often played is: 1-2-3-4-5-6. Thousands of tickets are bought with this combination every drawing. The selection is too far out of balance to come up in a random drawing.
Pattern betting is an even more popular method of marking bet slips. Patterns of numbers marked in a row to make a straight line, either across the bet slip vertically or diagonally get heavy play—which means sharing the prize with others if the numbers are drawn as winners. Other designs such as patterns of initials or numbers or crosses also get heavy play.
Other popular combinations that get heavy play are the number multiples, especially 5-10-15-20-25-30 and 7-14-21-28-35-42.
Many people like to play same last digits, such as 3-13-23-33-43, or all digits that end in seven, or some other favorite lucky lottery number. Even four same last digits occur in less than two-tenths of one percent of all drawings. Winning sets of numbers with three last digits the same occur in less than 3 percent of all drawings. Winning sets of numbers with no more than one repeated last digit represent nearly 90 percent of all drawings.
The majority of Lotto players like to play the calendar numbers, such as birth dates and anniversaries—and their children's ages. This means that the most heavily played numbers are 1 through 31. Megabucks 6/48 has 48 numbers. If you play only the calendar numbers, you might be sharing your jackpot with dozens of other winners. It's not to say that you shouldn't play your personal numbers if you feel these lucky numbers are good to play. But we recommend that you include a couple of high numbers so that just in case your numbers do hit, you win a prize that's worth something.
Quick Picks are used by lazy people who want to be in the action without putting any effort into winning. When you read articles about jackpot winners, it appears as though they all used either Quick Picks, birth dates, or their children's ages. The vast majority of people do play that way. If the majority of tickets sold are Quick Picks, then it makes sense that the majority of jackpots won should be won with Quick Picks. However, when you see the actual statistics, as we did, you'll find that you have a better chance of winning by picking numbers randomly out of a hat than by using Quick Picks.
The shortest, easiest way to search for Lotto numbers that have the greatest probability of winning is to track the trends. Smart Luck strategies show you how to understand and use historical data. Advantage Gold is the best lotto strategy software which has a vast assortment of charts and reports that allow you to examine your lotto numbers in an infinite variety of ways. Advantage Gold teaches you to understand and use historical data.
See all Smart Luck lottery software and lotto books or the full lottery product guide and list of best Oregon lottery software and books to use for Oregon Megabucks. Also see the references on the right side of this page: products to use for Oregon Megabucks, many articles for more info on understanding lottery strategy and the concepts of lotto wheeling, Oregon Megabucks lotto winner stories, links to our free wheels for Mega Bucks lotto, and more!
Don't miss a single drawing! Just choose your 5 lucky numbers and one Megaball number or choose Easy Pick and let the Lottery computer pick your numbers for you. With a subscription, you are guaranteed to be a part of every single drawing! For more information, please visit the subscriptions page of our website.
Megabucks Plus tickets can be purchased daily. The cut off time for ticket sales is 7:50 PM ET on the day of the draw. Drawings are held every Wednesday and Saturday at 7:59 PM ET. You can watch the Megabucks Plus drawings every Wednesday and Saturday by visiting the Tri-State Lotto Commission official drawing webcast.
Match your numbers to those drawn by the Lottery to win cash prizes! Win by having any one of these nine combinations.
Match | Prize | Odds |
---|---|---|
Jackpot | 1:4,496,388 | |
$30,000 | 1:899,277.6 | |
$1,300 | 1:24,979.9 | |
$150 | 1:4,996 | |
$25 | 1:713.7 | |
$7 | 1:142.7 | |
$5 | 1:63 | |
$2 | 1:12.6 | |
$2 | 1:15.3 |
The information contained on this page is for informational purposes only. All information is entered manually and is subject to error. The Maine State Lottery makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of this information but is not responsible for any errors contained on this page. In case of a discrepancy between the winning numbers listed on this page and the official winning numbers, the official results shall prevail. A winning ticket must be validated on the Maine State Lottery's gaming system for final winner verification. Complete Megabucks Plus game information and prize claiming instructions are available from any Maine State Lottery retail agent or by email at MaineLottery@Maine.gov.