California Fantasy 5 Strategies

Updated

Fantasy 5 Stats

  • Odds: 1 in 575,575
  • Jackpot: Minimum $50,000
  • Pick Size: Pick-5
  • Where to Play: California
  • How to Play: Choose 5 numbers from 1-39
  • Price: $1
  • Drawings: Daily
  • How to Win: Match all 5 winning numbers
  • Official Website: California State Lottery
  • Advantage Gold History File: CA0539.slh

About California Fantasy 5 Lotto Game

California's Fantasy 5 5/39 is a lotto number handicapper's dream because it has a same-game history going back to 1992, with more than 5,600 drawings. Patterns are well-defined which makes number selection methods more accurate. You choose five numbers from 1 to 39. Winning lotto numbers are drawn every day.

The odds of winning the first prize jackpot are one in 575,575. Compare that to the jackpot odds of one in 41 million of winning the California Super Lotto. The top prize starts at $50,000 and can top $500,000 depending on how many times the top prize rolls over. The Fantasy 5 jackpot will not make you mega rich, but it's guaranteed that when you win it, you will be very, very happy.

Solutions to Help You Pick the Right Numbers

Lottery Master Guide

Strategy Book

Read our free lotto tips to help you play the game smarter and win the lottery, taken from Gail Howard's lotto book, Lottery Master Guide. This is just a sample, and the book explains all of Smart Luck's successful methods of number selection in great detail with examples of patterns shown throughout. It is a great starting place for any lotto player.

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Advantage Gold

Strategy Software

Advantage Gold software makes all the charts for this game, to automate the process of choosing the best numbers to play.

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Lotto Wheeling Systems to help you win

Wheel Five Gold

In addition to number selection strategies, you should take advantage of wheeling your lotto numbers to improve your odds. You can quickly and easily wheel pick-5 lotto numbers using the Balanced Wheels in the Wheel Five Gold lottery software. You get a minimum win guarantee with every wheel!

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Lottery Strategies TO HELP YOU WIN California Fantasy 5

Free Lotto Tips

Lottery numbers are randomly drawn. But randomly drawn numbers form patterns that can be tracked and used to our advantage. Having carefully analyzed all the drawings in past lotto results of more than 200 different lotto games worldwide, with histories going back as far as 1955, we have verified the following incredibly simple rule:

That which is MOST POSSIBLE happens MOST OFTEN.
That which is LEAST POSSIBLE happens LEAST OFTEN.

The key to Smart Luck's successful lotto number selection methods is playing the probabilities. If you play a lotto ticket pattern that occurs only five percent of the time, you can expect that pattern to lose 95 percent of the time, giving you no chance to win 95 percent of the time. So, don't buck the probabilities.

How to WIN California Fantasy 5 Lotto

ODD-EVEN LOTTO NUMBER TIPS

When you select your lotto numbers, try to have a relatively even mix of odd and even numbers. All odd numbers or all even numbers are rarely drawn, occurring less than 3 percent of the time. The best mix is to have 3/2 or 2/3 which means three odd and two even, or two odd and three even. One of these two patterns will occur in 67 percent of the drawings.

HIGH-LOW LOTTO NUMBER TIPS

Winning numbers are usually spread across the entire number field. If we take a number field and cut it in half, we have the low half and the high half. In a 39-number game, numbers 1 to 20 would be in the low half, and numbers 21 to 39 would be in the high half. All high numbers or all low numbers are rarely drawn, occurring only 3 percent of the time. The best mix is to have 3/2 or 2/3 which means three high and two low, or two high and three low. One of these two patterns will occur in 67 percent of the drawings.

LOTTERY NUMBER GROUP STRATEGIES

Look at a list of past winning numbers for CA pick-5 lotto, and you'll see, more often than not, that one or more of the number groups is not represented. For example, in the combination 5-8-14-17-32, there are no 20's. Tracking and studying Number Groups can help you decide which group to omit and which group to give extra heavy play.

LOTTERY GAMES SKIPPED STRATEGIES

List the number of games skipped (games out) since the last hit (win) for each of the winning numbers during the last five games. Then mark the number of times each skip occurred. If any skip from 0 to 5 did not occur, play the Lotto numbers that are out that many games. (Help working with lotto games skipped.)

LOTTO NUMBER SUM ADVICE - PLAY A BALANCED GAME®

After you choose five numbers you want to play, add them together and make sure that the sum of the five numbers adds up to somewhere between 75 and 125. Sums that fall within that range will account for over 70 percent of all lottery jackpots won.

REPEAT HITS LOTTERY TIPS

In Fantasy 5, on average, one lottery number will be a repeat hit from the last drawing every other drawing or 53 percent of the time.

HOT NUMBER LOTTERY SECRETS

Numbers that have been out (losers) for four games or less account for about half of the winning numbers. Losing numbers that have been out for seven games or less account for about two-thirds of all the winning numbers. Numbers out ten games or less account for 78 percent of the winning numbers. This tells us that hot numbers are more likely to hit, but don't forget to include at least one long shot in your group of 5.

COLD NUMBER TIPS

It is difficult to know when a cold number will end a long losing streak. If you play a number every drawing because you think it is due, you could be chasing it for many months. (Number 45 in New York Lotto sat out 100 drawings before it finally hit.) Although, when a number has been out for 70 games or so, it might be worth chasing.

Lottery Pools and Lottery Syndicates

POOL YOUR WAY TO LOTTO RICHES

Several of the 109 Lotto jackpots won with Smart Luck lottery systems were won by groups of people who pooled their money. Sharing the ticket cost with others stretches your Lotto budget. By playing with a group, you can afford to buy more lottery tickets—and play larger wheeling systems—than you could (or should) by yourself. Draw up an agreement and have the members of your pool sign it.

How to Get Lucky in Lotto

CASH IN ON THE LUCK OF OTHERS

When you form a Lotto pool, your group is also pooling its aggregate luck. A jackpot could happen because of the luck just one member brings to your pool. Select your partners carefully. Share your luck with winners, not losers. Avoid negative people. Not only are they unlucky, but they dampen enthusiasm and drain energy from others. You want to enhance your own luck, not dilute its strength. One quick way to tell winners from losers is simply to ask them: "Do you think you are a lucky person?" Many people quickly admit, "I'm unlucky. I never win anything." They won't bring good luck to your group either.

CASH IN ON A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

No one should play games of chance out of desperation because they need the winnings. The needy have a greater fear of losing the hard-earned money they gamble with. It is just one of life's dirty tricks that the very fear of losing blocks the winning forces. Thoughts are charged with energy, especially when triggered by emotion. Fear attracts exactly that which one fears. A strong desire for a goal that is charged with positive energy, attracts a positive response, especially when every effort is made to attain that goal.

Lottery Wheels

USE BALANCED WHEEL® SYSTEMS

Balanced Wheeling® Systems allow you to bet a large group of numbers (more than 5), play scientific combinations of that group of numbers, and get a specific minimum win guarantee. Balanced Wheels® force all the winning numbers that are in your group to come together to give you at least one prize if some or all of the winning numbers are in your chosen group.

It's true that the more numbers you wheel, the easier it is to trap the winning numbers in your chosen group. But to get the most leverage for your money, the optimum number of numbers to wheel is not more than four or five numbers over HALF the numbers in your game. That means wheeling not more than about 25 Fantasy 5 numbers. Otherwise, you'll be spending MORE money chasing a SMALLER guaranteed prize. You benefit more by wheeling a carefully selected group of numbers.

THE BEST WAY TO WHEEL ALL THE LOTTO NUMBERS IN YOUR GAME

Any one wheeling system that covers ALL the 39 numbers in the California Fantasy 5 game is too spread out, making the win guarantee not worth the wager. There are smart ways to wheel all the numbers in the game by using Trap-by-Overlap and other wheeling strategies covered on pages 137 to 142 in Gail Howard's lotto book, Lottery Master Guide.

Most of Smart Luck's lottery winners used a Balanced Wheel® in addition to her Smart Luck® number selection methods. You can use a FREE interactive Balanced Wheel® System that won multiple jackpots. Read about our lottery winners, too. And when you win a jackpot with Smart Luck lotto systems, tell us about it so you can be added to Gail Howard's growing list of winners. If you don't want your name publicized, we will honor that.

Save Money by Knowing Lotto Numbers to Avoid

Lotto players who select their lottery numbers thoughtlessly or foolishly are destined to lose even before the drawing takes place. By knowing which number combinations and patterns to avoid, you'll have an advantage over such players—and save money, too.

AVOID NUMBER COMBINATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN DRAWN BEFORE

Many players like to bet the numbers that have won someone else a big jackpot, and by doing so, they are almost guaranteed NOT to win one themselves. In Fantasy 5, with seven drawings a week, a set of five numbers has a chance of being drawn once every 1,581 years. This should also answer the question we are so often asked, "Shouldn't I keep playing the same set of numbers every week because they are due to hit sometime?"

AVOID BETTING FIVE CONSECUTIVE NUMBERS

Even four consecutive numbers is a very rare occurrence that, in most Lotto games, has never happened once.

AVOID BETTING ONE LOTTO NUMBER GROUP

Never choose all five numbers from one number group, such as all single digits, or all teens, or all 20's, etc. All five winning numbers drawn from one group is highly unlikely.

AVOID THE COMBINATION 1-2-3-4-5

The most popular set of numbers most often played is: 1-2-3-4-5. Thousands of tickets are bought with this combination every drawing. The selection is too far out of balance to come up in a random drawing.

AVOID PATTERN BETTING

Pattern betting is an even more popular method of marking bet slips. Patterns of numbers marked in a row to make a straight line, either across the bet slip vertically or diagonally get heavy play—which means sharing the prize with others if the numbers are drawn as winners. Other designs such as patterns of initials or numbers or crosses also get heavy play.

AVOID NUMBER MULTIPLES

Other popular combinations that get heavy play are the number multiples, especially 5-10-15-20-25 and 7-14-21-28-35.

AVOID ALL SAME LAST DIGITS

Many people like to play same last digits, such as 3-13-23-33, or all digits that end in seven, or some other favorite lucky lottery number. Even four same last digits occur in less than two-tenths of one percent of all drawings. Winning sets of numbers with no more than one repeated last digit represent nearly 90 percent of all drawings.

AVOID LOW NUMBER COMBINATIONS

The majority of Lotto players like to play the calendar numbers, such as birth dates and anniversaries—and their children's ages. This means that the most heavily played numbers are 1 through 31. Fantasy 5 has 39 numbers. If you play only the calendar numbers, you might be sharing your jackpot with dozens of other winners. It's not to say that you shouldn't play your personal numbers if you feel these lucky numbers are good to play. But we recommend that you include a couple of high numbers so that just in case your numbers do hit, you win a prize that's worth something.

NIX LOTTO QUICK PICKS

Quick Picks are used by lazy people who want to be in the action without putting any effort into winning. When you read articles about jackpot winners, it appears as though they all used either Quick Picks, birth dates, or their children's ages. The vast majority of people do play that way. If the majority of tickets sold are Quick Picks, then it makes sense that the majority of jackpots won should be won with Quick Picks. However, when you see the actual statistics, as we did, you'll find that you have a better chance of winning by picking numbers randomly out of a hat than by using Quick Picks.

In Lotto, the Trend is Your Friend

The shortest, easiest way to search for lotto numbers that have the greatest probability of winning is to track the trends. Smart Luck strategies show you how to understand and use historical data. Advantage Gold is the best lotto strategy software which has a vast assortment of charts and reports that allow you to examine your lotto numbers in an infinite variety of ways. Advantage Gold teaches you to understand and use historical data.

California Fantasy 5 Products

Advantage Gold Advantage Gold™
Number Selection Lotto Software
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Wheel Five Gold Wheel Five Gold™
Balanced Lotto Wheel® Software for Pick-5 Games
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FFWG Filtering Full Wheel Generator™
Full Wheeling Software for Pick-3 to Pick-10 Games
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More Help for Which Products to Buy for California Fantasy 5:

Lottery Advantage Charts

Lottery Advantage Charts For a set of our number selection strategy charts printed just for California Fantasy 5, order the Lottery Advantage Charts.
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California Fantasy 5 Winners

There have been several Gail Howard lottery winners who have won California Fantasy 5. See their stories:
Lottery Winner
California Fantasy 5 Winner Wayne M

Lottery Winner
California Fantasy 5 Winner Orlando Zambrana

Lottery Winner
California Fantasy 5 Winner John Pickens

Lottery Winner
California Fantasy 5 Winner Ray Lakin

Lottery Winner
California Fantasy 5 Winners Bob and Bettie Carver


Free Winning Wheels

See how lotto wheeling can improve your odds of winning! Try out one of our free wheels for Fantasy 5:

Win with Lotto Software and Books

Find the Best Lottery Products to Win Your Lotto Game

See all Smart Luck lottery software and lotto books or the full lottery product guide and list of best California lottery software and books to use for California Fantasy 5. Also see the references on the right side of this page: products to use for Cali Fantasy 5, many articles for more info on understanding lottery strategy and the concepts of lotto wheeling, winner stories, links to our free wheels for Fantasy 5 in California, and more!

Good Luck with Smart Luck®.

Turn a game of luck into a game of skill!™