When playing lotto 49’s or any lottery where you have to pick 5 winning numbers such as the Irish lottery, using a wheel system is a sensible idea.
A wheel is where you choose a number of balls, let’s say you choose 8 numbers) and you work out the different combinations, or bets, you need to stake in order to guarantee a win if a certain number of balls are drawn.
These can be really difficult to work out, but we have a free calculator for you.
Let’s take a really simple example jsut to illustrate the concept of lotto wheels.
Lets imagine you are playing the lotto 49’s. You want to pick 6 numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and permutate or combine them so that if any 4 of them are drawn, you will win. Here’s how that would work.
| Bet | Selections placed |
|---|---|
| Bet 1 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 |
| Bet 2 | Selections:- 1 2 3 5 |
| Bet 3 | Selections:- 1 2 3 6 |
| Bet 4 | Selections:- 1 2 4 5 |
| Bet 5 | Selections:- 1 2 4 6 |
| Bet 6 | Selections:- 1 2 5 6 |
| Bet 7 | Selections:- 1 3 4 5 |
| Bet 8 | Selections:- 1 3 4 6 |
| Bet 9 | Selections:- 1 3 5 6 |
| Bet 10 | Selections:- 1 4 5 6 |
| Bet 11 | Selections:- 2 3 4 5 |
| Bet 12 | Selections:- 2 3 4 6 |
| Bet 13 | Selections:- 2 3 5 6 |
| Bet 14 | Selections:- 2 4 5 6 |
| Bet 15 | Selections:- 3 4 5 6 |
If you usually spend £3 or £4 a week playing the National Lottery and winning nothing, then you should seriously consider switching to Lotto 49’s or the Irish Lottery.
You have much more chances of winning a prize and you have much more fun too.
If you place 14 bets on the lotto 49’s with Ladbrokes with a 20 pence per line stake, that would cost you £2.80. If and four of your 6 numbers are drawn, you will be guaranteed a win of £2000. That’s pretty good for such a low stake. You can take this a step further too. You would feel pretty bad if 5 or your 6 numbers came up and you had only bet on 4 folds! So you can add the 5 folds into your bet as well at the same stake of 20 pence a line. That would bring you total stake up to £3.40. Your additional six 5 folds bets would be:
| Bet | Selections placed |
|---|---|
| Bet 1 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 5 |
| Bet 2 | Selections:- 1 2 3 5 6 |
| Bet 3 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 6 |
| Bet 4 | Selections:- 1 2 4 5 6 |
| Bet 5 | Selections:- 1 3 4 5 6 |
| Bet 6 | Selections:- 2 3 4 5 6 |
So let’s pretend that you place a the above bets at 20 pence a line for a total of £3.40 and you got 5 numbers out of 6. Let’s say the winning numbers were 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. How much would you win?
Let’s look at the table of your bets:
4 folds:
| Bet | Selections placed | Win/Lose | Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bet 1 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 2 | Selections:- 1 2 3 5 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 3 | Selections:- 1 2 3 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 4 | Selections:- 1 2 4 5 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 5 | Selections:- 1 2 4 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 6 | Selections:- 1 2 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 7 | Selections:- 1 3 4 5 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 8 | Selections:- 1 3 4 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 9 | Selections:- 1 3 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 10 | Selections:- 1 4 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 11 | Selections:- 2 3 4 5 | Win | £2000.00 |
| Bet 12 | Selections:- 2 3 4 6 | Win | £2000.00 |
| Bet 13 | Selections:- 2 3 5 6 | Win | £2000.00 |
| Bet 14 | Selections:- 2 4 5 6 | Win | £2000.00 |
| Bet 15 | Selections:- 3 4 5 6 | Win | £2000.00 |
5 folds:
| Bet | Selections placed | Win/Lose | Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bet 1 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 5 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 2 | Selections:- 1 2 3 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 3 | Selections:- 1 2 3 4 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 4 | Selections:- 1 2 4 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 5 | Selections:- 1 3 4 5 6 | Lose | £0.00 |
| Bet 6 | Selections:- 2 3 4 5 6 | Win | £30,000.00 |
Your total winnings would come to £40,000. These are the equivalent of one fifth of the amount you would have won if you had staked £1 per line. By staking just 20 pence per line, you win 20%, or a fifth, of the guaranteed amount shown in this table.
In reality, however, you know that it is quite unlikely that you will have 5 numbers up. It is more likely that you will have 2, 3 or 4 numbers up in a selection of 6 numbers. So let’s work out how much it would cost to stake a combiniation bet covering all possible 3 folds and 4 folds from 6 numbers!
Instead of laying each bet out in a table, we’ve prepared a handy cheat sheet whcih you can see below:
| selections | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| singles | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| doubles | – | 1 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 21 | 28 | 36 | 45 |
| trebles | – | – | 1 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 35 | 56 | 84 | 120 |
| 4 folds | – | – | 1 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 35 | 56 | 84 | 120 |
| 5 folds | – | – | 1 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 35 | 56 | 84 | 120 |