NetLotto Version 2.4 has been delayed by both technical amd personal reasons (mainly I had the flu and then was out of the office for 10 days for a fencing competition.) The release of Version 2.4 is now scheduled for the end of this month, i.e., Sunday, July 31. Version 2.4 will include support for 3 ball lottery games, Irish lotteries, Indian lotteries and all Canadian lotteries, including the provincial ones. The games statistics will be improved by reporting draw frequency for bonus balls separately from main balls.

Learn more about NetLotto here.

Check out the NetLotto Weblog at http://netlotto.blogspot.com to see the effect of the Mega Millions changes.

Despite all the "bad" publicity about California's joining Mega Millions, and whether or not it is in fact legal, plus the shameful lack of publicity surrounding the changes to the Mega Millions ball changes, which increased the number of combinations by almost a third (see the NetLotto Blog at http://netlotto.blogspot.com for the arithmetic) it's all worked out fine for the organizers and, eventually, for one or more lucky winners. Californians have poured money into Mega Millions, the reduced odds have resulted in zero winners so far, which means tonight's jackpot is an estimated $122 Million!

NetLotto remains the only system ever to have selected a Mega Millions winning ticket! Check out how at http://www.netlotto.org/megamillions_winning_entry.htm. In a few minutes, you could have your best chance ever at 122 million dollars.

I'm going to repeat this item from the last Newsletter, because there's just so many of them about. About once a week, someone, somewhere in the world, sends me a copy of an email they've received, telling them they've won a large sum of money, and asking me if it's legit. Sometimes they're NetLotto users, but mostly they're just people who've picked up my name as a lottery expert while surfing the Net.

I'll say it again. If you haven't entered it, you haven't won it and if you have entered it, you will NOT be advised of your winnings by email!!!

The other scam going around at the moment is telephone based. The con artist is very convincing, so beware. A New York woman lost $25,000.

If you have responded to a phone call or letter, your name will have been added to a 'sucker list' which is made available to numerous scam operators.

You might then receive an unsolicited phone call from Canada congratulating you on winning the 'big prize' in a national lottery such as the Canadian, Australian or Spanish.

You will be told that before you can claim the prize, you must send money to pay for taxes and processing fees.

Thousands of people in the UK have already received unsolicited phone calls and sent thousands of pounds to fraudulent lottery schemes operating out of Canada. I'm aware of people who have lost up to £300,000 as they responded to more and more telephone calls demanding payments to cover costs in order to receive their prize. The prize doesn't exist, and they never receive any winnings in return for their cash.

The U.S. Supreme Court started the 20th century by reaffirming the states’ use of police powers to control gambling, effectively ending all legal gambling in the United States, including the Louisiana Lottery. The Supreme Court ruled that lotteries had “a demoralizing influence upon the people.”

Lotteries, with their amazing history of funding public and private enterprise back to ancient times, were prohibited in the United States by constitutional provisions for the next 60 to 70 years.

(Continued from previous newsletter.) Consider this winning lottery sequence:

4,11,19,28,34,44

Another way of representing this sequence is by starting with the first ball, and then recording the difference between it and the next one, and so on. Note that we have already taken advantage of the fact that it doesn’t matter what order the balls are drawn in, so we have first rearranged them from the lowest to the highest. In this way, we avoid negative numbers.

Our number sequence becomes:

4,7,8,9,6,10

If we had selected those numbers, it would be just as good as selecting the winning sequence, because the second sequence is readily converted back to the first:
4
4 + 7 = 11
11 + 8 = 19
19 + 9 = 28
28 + 6 = 34
34 + 10 = 44

In other words, instead of having to pick 6 numbers out of 49, we would only have to pick 6 numbers out of 10! How much easier is that?

Does this really work? It depends on the lottery. The question is simply for what percentage of draws is the difference between the numbers ten or less? If it's sufficiently high (and what constitutes "high" again depends on the number of balls in the lottery) then the method of differences will result in a HUGE improvement in the odds.

Unfortunately, the mathematics to work all this out is fairly complex, and even then has to be applied to several years history for a given lottery to be reliable.

The GOOD NEWS is that NetLotto Version 3 will have all of this built in. So if your lottery qualifies, you'll be able to use this method to dramatically improve your chances of winning a big prize!

Because of all the additional features, the price of NetLotto WILL go up with the release of Version 3. BUT, all existing users will be able to upgrade to Version 3 at no extra cost. So, there's no better time to buy NetLotto than NOW. Go to http://www.netlotto.org and click on the Order Now button.

KEEP YOUR GAMES HISTORY UP TO DATE: If you're a NetLotto package owner, you'll want to keep your games history up to date. To get the latest results, click on the link download past results and follow the instructions. This is a totally FREE service.

SUBSCRIPTIONS to Lottery Tips is free. Sign up on the NetLotto Web Site at http://www.netlotto.org/subscribe.htm. Our privacy policy is simple. Under NO circumstances will we share subscribers' email addresses with any third party. We actively discourage spam.

FORWARDING of this Newsletter to friends and colleagues IS allowed.

To UNSUBSCRIBE, send any message (no text or subject is required) to unsubscribe@netlotto.org.

PLEASE note that you must email to help@netlotto.org if you want a personal response (or fill in a feedback form on the NetLotto Web Site.) Other email addresses, such as sales@netlotto.org and subscribe@netlotto.org are handled by software and Mark doesn't get to see them.

We would love to hear what you think of this issue of Lottery Tips. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to share with us, please send those, too! Just e-mail me at help@netlotto.org