Can you hack the lottery? You might have asked yourself this question as you watched Powerball winnings climb higher and higher or dreamed of photo ops holding one of those giant checks. The answer is “sort of.” You can’t get away from the fact that the lottery is ultimately a game of chance, so there’s no guaranteed correlation between what you do and the outcome. however, there may be some hacks that can increase the likelihood that you will win.

Try and Increase Your Chances

You can always play lottery with a group of people to increase your chances of winning. People often do this with coworkers or another group. Everyone pools their money, and you then buy multiple tickets. More tickets mean more chance of winning, but of course, if you do win, you also have to split the proceeds with others. However, buying more tickets, whether you do it on your own or with a group, is probably the only surefire way to increase your likelihood of winning, and even that may be only a small increase.

Pay Attention to the Odds

Understanding the odds is important. Unless you are playing in some kind of raffle, it doesn’t matter how many other people have lottery tickets. That does not affect the likelihood that you are holding the winning numbers. However, if it is a raffle-like lottery that is affected by the number of people playing, be sure to play the week or two after a big payout. Fewer people are playing at this time.

Stick with Quick Pick?

Experts disagree on whether it’s better to pick lottery numbers yourself or let a machine pick them, but there is one important point to keep in mind. Many people play using their own or other important birthdays, but this ignores the fact that in games such as Powerball, numbers go higher than 31. You may want to make a point of choosing at least some numbers that are random and higher than birthday numbers. Then again, it’s important to understand that no one sequence of numbers is more likely to appear than another in a truly random lottery. That means even sequential numbers can be winners.

Free Money is Still Key

Playing for lower stakes is another way of increasing your chances of winning. For example, scratch-off cards may not pay much, but they also have relatively good odds compared to multi-million-dollar lotteries. You might only end up with enough to grab a pizza or see a movie, but it still beats having to pay.

Look to the Winners

Some lottery winners offer all kinds of advice, often conflicting, about how to win. For example, one seven-time lottery winners, Richard Lustig, says that to win at Powerball you should keep the same numbers week after week and never let the machine pick for you. Does this really make a difference, or it just the illusion of control? It’s hard to say although perhaps Lustig’s record speaks for itself.

It’s likely that people have been trying to hack lotteries for as long as lotteries have been around. On the one hand, your odds of winning a giant lottery aren’t great; it’s said that you are more likely to be struck by lightning. On the other hand, someone has to win, and the great thing about the random nature of the lottery is that it’s just as likely to be you as anyone else.