Look at How Lottery Winners Have Chosen Their Numbers
Do you have a specific strategy you use when playing the lottery? Has it changed at all in all the time you’ve been playing? Sometimes, players won’t change their numbers or use try any different approaches when it comes to playing for fear of jinxing a system and worrying that the numbers they once played might then suddenly come good.
It’s sometimes worth considering how big money lottery winners have chosen their numbers, to see if you can get any tips, hints or advice on how to increase your chances of getting a great prize.
Just how do lottery winners pick their numbers? Read on to find out all about it.
Different Strategies for Different Players
It’s possibly a little bit annoying to find out that different lottery winners have used lots of different tactics to find their winning lines. This is, sadly, something many of them don’t tend to share with members of the public!
If we were to take a look at the statistics and base the chances of you winning the lottery entirely on luck, then the chances of scooping a big prize are as remote as 1 in 1000000000. That alone might put people off purchasing a ticket!
People who win big, or win frequently are experienced hands at playing and know how to play the games to maximize their opportunities. This is not necessarily the case for people who win once but relates more to people who have won smaller amounts in a lot of lottery games. They’ll all more or less use some sort of secret strategy. This will increase their chances of winning a lottery to one thousand times more than an average person.
How Do Winners Pick Their Lottery Numbers?
There are some people who swear by just using family birthdays, some will alight on a selection of lucky numbers that have come good for them in other areas of their life. It seems that there are almost as many ways of choosing lottery numbers as there are chances of winning it.
In the UK, the chances of winning the main National Lottery jackpot are 1 in 13,983,816 (or approximately 1 in 14 million), with a 1 in 2,330,636 chance of getting five numbers plus the bonus ball. To get five numbers, there is a one in 55,000 chance of them being drawn.
In the UK and Europe, to win the Euromillions jackpot there is a 1 in 116.5 million of all your numbers being drawn.
So is there a way that we can improve our odds, regardless of where we’re playing the lottery from? Here are some of the strategies past winners have used.
Go Through Old Lottery Draw Results and Pick Most Commonly Drawn Numbers
Take a look through lottery draws past, out of a selection of a few months draws, choose a selection of numbers that have come up most often. For instance, looking at UK Lottery draws it appears the number 44 is one that comes up a lot. In fact, since the lottery’s inception in 1994, it’s come up 253 times.
There are six other numbers that have come up a lot too, they are:
38 has been drawn approximately 251 times
40 has been drawn approximately 249 times
23 has been drawn approximately 248 times
39 has been drawn approximately 246 times
33 has been drawn approximately 245 times
This doesn’t mean they’re like to be drawn together – so savvy players will play one or two, or three of these, but perhaps not all six in one go. There’s a much chance of them all being drawn together as if you’d selected numbers randomly!
Birthdates and Other Special Dates
Seeing as the list of most commonly drawn numbers features five that are over thirty-one, it does mean people are statistically less likely to use birthdays/other special dates as their choices.
Using a system like this means you’re limited as to what you can and can’t choose – but it still remains a common system amongst lottery winners. However, as more winners have picked these numbers in the past, it’s likely they’ll have won smaller prizes and had to share them with other people.
Look for Numbers That Haven’t Come Up in a While
Reverse engineer our first idea and you’ll find another common tack lottery winners try. Go through older draws and work out what numbers HAVEN’T come up in a long time. Intuition may tell you that if something hasn’t happened in a long time, it’s likely to be overdue and therefore will occur!
However, an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Sussex Dr. John Haigh has written a paper on Lottery Statistics and says the following of this particular idea: “Just because a number has not come up for a while does not mean it will in the next draw. Just as you flip a coin, if you get five heads in a row, it does not mean the next time it is more likely to be tails. The odds are still 50/50. So with the lottery, they remain one in 14 million.”
Personal Lucky Numbers
In the same way, using special dates or birthdays is an approach many people use, lucky numbers are also a common theme – there is obviously more scope here to use all the different lottery number variations. Superstition plays a part here, and there are numbers that some people are drawn to more than others.
Research has been undertaken on this lottery draw phenomenon and an experimental physicist, Jonathan Clarke has revealed that the most commonly chosen numbers are those that end in a seven.
Choose Numbers That Have Been Involved in Big Money Wins
When winning numbers and draws from the Swiss Lottery were analyzed, there was a trend noted and that was that people opted to often choose their number based on the ones that had won the previous week’s draw. Some people used jackpot numbers from two weeks before and some further back than that. However, it doesn’t really seem to make any difference, as Dr. Haigh comments that the “odds remain the same”. What it does do, is make picking your numbers easier.
Use Some Scientific Techniques!
There are people queuing up to give advice on how to win the lottery. There are online advice guides and even books you can spend your cash on that give advice on using complicated numeric systems or maths techniques.
One of these systems is called Wheeling. This involves going out and buying lots of different tickets and playing seven numbers rather than six across the lot.
There are claims prediction software can help, but as we’ve seen in the past, these are best left alone and can sometimes be distinctly dodgy.
The truth is that no one system is totally effective and that if enough people use them, there is obviously the chance that statistics will clearly improve…just because more people are using them.
It could be said that the only real winners from these techniques are the people that write the books and sell the software – they’ve won lots of money from naive punters, without even trying.
Just Be Random!
The best and most frequently recommended idea by winners and experts is honestly just to be random in your choices. It’ll not increase your chance of winning, but it will increase your chance of winning more money.
Looking at numbers that have been chosen by others over time will give you less chance of winning than if you’re absolutely random and just choose numbers at will. Says Dr. Haigh “If you pick the least popular numbers and win, then you will probably share your jackpot with fewer people”.
Look at Your Ticket And Make a Pretty Pattern?
In 1995 the National Lottery had a record-breaking night when 133 people shared one jackpot of £16 million.
When the numbers were checked, a phenomenon was revealed. All of the numbers were contained in the three inside columns of the playing slip at the time! There were also no two numbers on the same row and further, none of them were adjacent to each other. From looking at the results, it simply appears the numbers were selected randomly for the way they looked on the slip, which is utterly bizarre!
Dr. Haigh comments on this happening and this chosen method and says: “This is a really lazy way of choosing numbers as it is an easy thing to do. People do like to make pretty patterns on their playing slip. Research on the Swiss lottery has also shown that a lot of people select numbers that go diagonally across or down the slip, for example.”
In conclusion, Dr. Haigh offers some final thoughts on the best way forward to choose your own lottery numbers to stand a good chance of winning. He comments: “Whatever method you chose, the chances of your six numbers coming up remain the same. It is ridiculous to think otherwise.”
So the bottom line is, you can look at how lottery winners have chosen their numbers, but it is all ultimately down to luck at the end of the day!
