Odds are location is not key to winning

Despite big wins in area, geography doesn’t matter

As the Mega Millions jackpot climbs to $1.6 billion — the largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever — surely someone in the Bay Area, it would seem, stands a good chance of becoming America’s newest billionaire.

If geography is destiny, we’re on a roll: On Friday, a Morgan Hill gas station sold a ticket with five of six numbers worth $3.4 million, following Tuesday’s winning San Francisco ticket of $1.9 million, July’s $543 million ticket sold in San Jose and April’s $27 million SuperLotto plus ticket in Fremont.

Or, if you want to really narrow things down, maybe Arco AM/PM gas stations are the charm: two of the Bay Area’s four winning tickets were bought at those franchises.

Lured by hunch and whimsy, on Saturday players traveled to

food stores and gas stations to buy tickets, stoking dreams of being vaulted into a world of ease, wealth and generosity.

“I hope I get this money,” said San Jose resident Jannet Lee, 67, at a convenience store at a Chevron gas station in downtown San Jose. “I would donate to all the charities.”

But the truth, say statisticians, is that there’s no luck in location.

“Each time the game is played it’s a new game,” said Panos Mourdoukoutas, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Long Island University in New York. “The outcome of one game doesn’t affect the outcome of the next game.”

That means your chances of winning Tuesday’s big prize remain remote: about 1 in 302 million. You’re more likely to die from getting hit by lightning (1 in 1.1 million), struck by an asteroid (1 in 74 million) or murdered during a trip to the Grand Canyon (1 in 8.1 million), according to Amram Shapiro, a strategic statistician and author of “The Book of Odds.”

Here’s what else won’t help: picking your own numbers and sticking with them — every time. Because Mega Millions is based on random drawings, every number has an equal chance.

“Special numbers” — birthdays or anniversaries, for instance — aren’t so special, either, said Mourdoukoutas. Machine-picked numbers have the same chances of winning as personalized numbers, he said.

But there’s one good way to boost the chances of winning, he said. That’s by joining a pool of ticket buyers. Sure, your payoff is smaller. But you’re more likely to win.

Here’s how it works: If you spend $10 on your own, you play five games ($2 per game). But if you pitch $10 to a pool in which 100 people pay $10 each, you play 500 games. This means that your chances of winning the game are 100 times higher.

That’s how the 11 coworkers from San Jose’s Wells Fargo bank won this summer. They each pitched $2 into an office pool — and won the $543 million Mega Millions jackpot, the largest prize in California lottery history. After taxes, each employee got about $19 million.

The San Francisco Bay Area feels like a lottery hot spot just because there are so many of us, said Lottery spokesman Greg Parashak.

“The Bay Area, along with Los Angeles, has the population base — more tickets are sold there,” he said. “In New York, the majority of winners are in the New York City metropolitan area. Not Buffalo.”

Additionally, we’re selfabsorbed — neglecting to notice that millions of dollars also have been won in far-flung locales. A Porterville liquor store recently sold a $5 million ticket. A woman from the city of Orange won $10 million when she bought some Lotto Scratchers on her way to a relative’s funeral.

And humans are natural pattern seekers, helping us uncover hidden meanings but also seeing things that aren’t really there. Patterns help astronomers detect space signals, and biologists see evolution. But they also give us gibberish, like finding H-I-T-L-E-R hidden in the Bible.

“That’s the way the human brain works,” said Mourdoukoutas. “The emotional brain looks for patterns, and the rational brain seeks explanations.”

But we can dream — and on Saturday, we did. Michael

Habte, a Union City resident who works as a support clerk for Alameda County Social Services, strolled into the 76 gas station Saturday afternoon and plopped down $2 for a single Powerball ticket. One is all you need, he said. When asked how he’d spend his prize if his one ticket made him a lucky winner, he thought for a while before answering, “Of course — a house. It’s a good investment.”

Yanira Gomez, the station manager, bought two tickets for herself and two for her husband on Friday. She said she’s not expecting to win, but that if she does, she’d like to get her family out of debt and buy homes for her parents, children and sisters. And then maybe travel, retire early and give back to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Alicia Gaviola, a Union City resident who works in finance, bought not one ticket but nine. While her husband fueled up at National Petroleum on Alvarado Boulevard in Union City, she jumped out of the car and went in to buy three each of the Mega Million, Super Lotto and Powerball tickets. With her winnings, she said, she’d like to pay off her mortgage and travel around Europe.

“I don’t know, I’m just taking my chances,” she said.

Even if our chances aren’t better here in the Bay Area, said economist Mourdoukoutas, there’s this happy news: They’re not any worse.

“Everyone who purchases a ticket for Tuesday, no matter where he or she is,” he said, “stands the same chance of winning the game.”