Money Management Systems

by Robert Perkis / Lotto-Logix


Born in the wagon of a traveling show was probably the bastard mix of magician and advertising.

Stage magic being all about misdirection of focus away from how the trick is performed, no wonder razzle dazzle is a favorite ingredient of advertising. Selling the sizzle not the gristle is how you make the cash flow these days.

Used to be, money management was the neglected step child of the gaming system industry. A few lines at the end about pacing yourself to your budget and doubling the wager if you needed to win more. Ho hum boring.

Now things have changed. We see ads on how to win big money at games with small payouts. Win ten grand at roulette, win a quarter of a million at Pick-3, buy the system and find out how!

The magician directs attention to the large amounts possible glossing over the huge hole in the plan that can lead to ruin.

What is the secret to winning a quarter of a million at Pick-3 you ask? Walk into the 7/11 and put down $500.00 straight on each number you want to play. Of course a system you pay hundreds of dollars for will include the doubling steps for building up from a small starting wager, but $500.00 straight is the final answer for a quarter of a million dollar return in a non pari-mutuel game.

The huge hole is the lack of a winning system to bring in repeated wins. The magician directs your attention away from the prediction system or the money management system's total lack of a prediction system. How well that aspect of the whole is going to perform gets little mention if any.

Mathematically speaking a winning Pick-3 system that plays at a profit over time is impossible because the state only returns fifty cents on the dollar. Odds are a thousand to one and a one dollar straight play wins $500.00 so you can't buy a win that would be profitable.

The best system I've seen, Mastermind-3 can hover along at break even for a while and even be ahead of the game if it hits straight early. Trouble is you're playing between 36 and 50 numbers so you'd get only five or eight doubled plays before having to start over again.

Let's say, you're playing 50 tickets and one hits straight...

Allowing you to play $2. on 50 tickets to win $1,000.
Allowing you to play $4. to win $2,000.
Allowing you to play $8. to win $4,000.
Allowing you to play $16. to win $8,000.
Allowing you to play $32. to win $16,000.
Allowing you to play $64. to win $32,000.
Allowing you to play $128. to win $64,000.
Allowing you to play $256. to win $128,000.
Allowing you to play $512. to win $256,000.


And there we have our quarter of a million provided we have an unbroken chain of TEN straight hits within a range of five draws each. Feeling lucky? How many times have you had Ten straight wins within a 45 day stretch?

We can always play 25 numbers instead of 50 giving us half as many chances to win for ten days, have you ever had ten straight wins within a 90 day stretch?

You can even play games with the numbers trying for a better jumping off point. Give four a $4. play, four a $2. play, and eight a $1. play straight plus a .50 box bet on all, the theory being a box win will pay for the day if you don't win big.

There are many ways to flex your money management based on the first win paying for the next, though I must confess the idea of carrying $25,000.00 to the 7/11 each day trying to win $250,000.00 is already making me nervous.

Paper charts, where you enter the last draw and look down or across to see what to play, how can that work? Maybe the guy who wrote the system knew how to make it work, but like the wizard holds out a secret ingredient from the spell so it won't be as effective if it works at all.

Another point glossed over is paying taxes on each step of the winning system. Think the lottery is going to hand you a check the next day for those amounts above without stripping off taxes, think again. Maybe you'll have to add some more layers or run to hundreds of 7/11's collecting one $500.00 win at a time. Good records might get some of that tax money back if you lose, but you still have to front that amount or add layers to keep playing.

You might look at the account above and say you'd be happy with the $128,000.00 or your significant other would kill if you spent $64,000.00 trying to win Pick-3, even if it was the state's money. No matter it is always the last play you plan to make that loses or am I being too fatalistic?

No, when it comes to doubling up on Pick-3 after a win a short series would be best provided you have a good system that clusters wins, say after a dry spell.

Did you know you can double Pick-6? If your Pick-6 pays a fair prize (say $10.) for a three number win, you can track your combinations and when you've spent $9. on one without a win you start putting $2. on it. This system can lead to ruin with a bigger loss because it breaks down before probability suggests payback, but can work as often as not if playing all the numbers on eight or nine well constructed lines.

Lottery is designed not to be won so it takes a good system and a healthy dose of luck to reach the winner's circle.

Good luck to you.

Robert Perkis / Lotto-Logix

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