Can Technology Make Winning Easier?

People in Burns Lake, British Columbia, have been winning a lot at a Canadian lottery 50/50. The frequency with which the jackpot is reached is staggering, with some people having won as many as 22 times. It is common to hear of an individual winning 15 or 16 times, and winning 4 times is practically something of a non-event at this stage. The citizens appear to be winning over 100 times more often than they should according to statistics. With so many tech gimmicks out there that help players hit the jackpot, could residents of Burns Lake owe their luck to technology?

What’s Actually Going On?

The name 50/50 may imply that it’s very easy to win when playing this lottery. But the name of the lottery does not mean that with every ticket your chance of winning is 50%. It simply means that half of the winnings go to the winner and half goes to the lottery corporation. So while the fact that so many people win at B.C. 50/50 may be a good advertisement, it does not mean winning at this lottery is any easier than any other Canadian lotteries.

It turns our that Burns Lake seems to be winning the correct proportion of what it buys. The British Columbia Lottery Corporation spokesperson said in 2017 Burns Lake ‘’contributed to 4.4 percent of overall British Columbia 50/50 draws,” and that “tickets purchased in Burns Lake represent 4.9 percent of overall British Columbia 50/50 wins”. This makes sense. Many people in Burns Lake buy from 150 to 200 lottery tickets daily, hoping that by spending big they will win big.

It does make sense, however. Traditionally, one of the most foolproof ways to secure a win in a lottery is to form a syndicate. Syndicates increase the chances of winning because all individual tickets get pooled together. This means that instead of one in a thousand chance of winning, the odds could increase to, for example, 100 in a thousand.

How Can Technology Help?

Since the emergence of easily accessible internet and the proliferation of online spaces, it’s easy for lottery players to communicate with one another. Equally, it’s now very common to form syndicate communities of as many as one hundred people. This obviously decreases the amount each player can take home because the winnings have to be divided between everyone who’s taking part in the lottery. Then again with a greater chance of grabbing the big win, the amount of fun increases also.

Apart from granting better access to other players, the internet makes the process of setting up a syndicate, signing agreements, and dividing the winnings among all players less complicated than it is in real life. Because joining a syndicate online is a fully automated process, any complexities related to setting one up in real life such as having to purchase tickets and the distribution of winnings are practically completely avoided.

Another way in which people try to assure a win is through applications like Lottery Prediction Worldwide, which can be used to generate numbers which have the greatest statistical chance of being drawn based on when they last appeared. On the one hand, these apps tell you what number should statistically come up, but on the other, they ignore the fact that on any single draw, the chance of a number coming up or not coming up is 50%.

The interesting thing is that the residents of Burns Lake don’t seem to be using either of those methods. Their luck looks due to how many tickets get sold to individual players, so chances of hitting the jackpot increase naturally.