Mega Millions $970 million: tips from a Harvard professor

Many lottery players employ tactics that they think (or hope) will improve their chances of winning, from playing every week, to using "lucky" numbers, such as a birthday, to playing the same numbers every time in the hope that they will eventually be selected, to simply using Quick Pick (our Surprise), where lottery terminals automatically select a group of numbers.

But there is a difference between what people think will work and what is actual mathematical probability.

In fact, there's only one proven way to increase your chances of winning the lottery, according to Harvard statistics professor Dr. Mark Glickman: Your chances only increase by buying more tickets for each game, he previously told CNBC Make It.

That's because the odds of winning any lottery remain the same, regardless of the numbers selected, or even if you buy a ticket for each draw. Whether you play the lottery every day or are buying your first lottery ticket for fun, the chances of winning any individual draw or scratch-off ticket remain the same.

In fact, even if you've already won the lottery once, you'll still have the same chances of winning the next drawing as anyone who buys a ticket. (Just ask several winners like Peggy Dodson, who in 2019 won a $1 million jackpot with a "Max-a-Million" scratch-off lottery ticket at the same Pennsylvania convenience store where she bought another winning $100.000 scratch-off ticket just two years earlier.)

“If someone has already won the lottery, then the chance of that person winning the lottery a second time will be exactly the same as the probability of winning the lottery if they had never won the lottery before,” said Glickman. “In other words, having won the lottery previously does not improve or make less likely the chance of winning the lottery in the future.”

This also means that buying lottery tickets regularly – whether every day or every week – does not increase your chances of winning, because the odds in all lotteries are independent.

Even buying a few extras for a particular draw doesn't improve your chances much, especially when the odds are around 300 million to one (as is the case with the huge recent Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots). Buying five tickets would give you five in 302 million chances of winning the current $970 million Mega Millions jackpot, which is better odds than just buying one ticket, but you're still much more likely to be struck by lightning.

Furthermore, buying more tickets means that “the investment you make by playing multiple games also increases, and the payouts in a real lottery can vary,” according to Dr. Lew Lefton, a faculty member at Georgia Tech’s School of Mathematics. In other words, investing more money in a larger number of tickets may not always be worthwhile, Lefton previously told CNBC Make It.

“My advice is not to play the lottery and expect to win,” Lefton added. “That being said, it can be fun to play the lottery and imagine you win. That’s a different approach, and it’s like any other game: you just have to be willing to spend what you can afford to lose.”

Meanwhile, if you are lucky enough to win the lottery, financial experts generally advise you to choose the lump sum option (and invest your winnings in long-term stocks) rather than accepting multi-year annuity payments. And no matter what, you will certainly face a considerable tax impact on any lottery winnings above $5.000, with the minimum federal tax burden on lottery winnings being 24%, which is withheld by the IRS (Income Tax) before the money reaches the winner's bank account, along with state taxes that vary by state.

A lucky winner beat the odds (one in 292,2 million to be exact) to win the $731,1 million Powerball jackpot on Wednesday. (With CNBC Make It )