There was only one winner of the $425 million Powerball drawing this week, and the ticket was sold at a gas station in California’s Bay Area. As you spend that money in your head, as we inevitably all do, you might wonder how you could win the lottery. You don’t need luck. Here’s a guaranteed winning strategy.

Arguably, this is common sense, but Barbara Friedberg lays it all out and even does the math.

Step 1: Get a jar. Or an envelope. Whatever works for you. (You can even buy purpose-built ones.)

Step 2: When you want to buy a lottery ticket, take the money you would have spent and put it in the jar instead.

Step 3: Deposit this money in a savings account.

Say you spend $20 a week on lottery tickets, between scratchoffs and lotto tickets. If you deposit that money instead, that’s $1,040. If you maintain the savings habit instead of the lottery habit for ten years, assuming that savings account interest rates eventually go up a bit, you could have $11,031 in the account.

Using this innovative lottery strategy, you are guaranteed to win. You can’t say that for a lottery ticket.

BEST WAY TO PLAY THE LOTTERY (YOU’RE NOT GOING TO LIKE IT) [Barbara Friedberg] (via Rockstar Finance)

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