I've been puzzling over this for a while for some reason, so I'd love to get some feedback on it and hopefully put the matter to rest in my head. So here's the problem: Imagine that you are entering a raffle. You can enter as many times as you want. Numbers are assigned to each entry based on the order in which they are received. A number is then chosen at random to select a winner, and all numbers have an equal chance of being selected. Let's say there are 100 entries total, and you choose to enter 10 times. It seems simple enough; you have a 1 in 10 chance of winning, right? But here's what I've been wondering about: Would it benefit you to purchase 10 raffle tickets in one block or spread out over a period of time? Based on the number of tickets it seems like it shouldn't make a difference, but I can't help but think purchasing the tickets in a block (ie, assigning yourself 10 consecutive numbers, such as 1-10) makes your entry a larger target, therefore increasing your odds? If a number equal to or less than 10 is chosen, you automatically win; it doesn't really matter what number it is. This seems more beneficial than spreading out your entries and hoping one of your numbers is chosen precisely. I guess what I'm getting at is choosing numbers in a block provides something of a margin of error; if you only had the #6 ticket within the 1-10 range, for example, a 5 or a 7 winning number is frustratingly close. Buying out the whole block decreases your odds of the winning number being one off. In the 1-10 example, it could only happen once, if an 11 is selected as the winning number. I don't know, maybe I'm putting too much thought into this, but I'd love to get to the bottom of it! If this strategy does increase your odds, how can you calculate that?