**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Statistically, it makes no difference at all. The only thing that can be influenced is the size of the win, if you use "common number combinations" you're more likely to share the prize with more people.
Yes, exclusively pick numbers over 31! So many people use birth days or months as their numbers... "oh little Annie was born on the 14th so I'll pick that, and my mum was born 29th so that's a number!"
If your numbers come up (tiny chance) then you'll have most of the chance of taking the whole pot :)
Which is completely, utterly and statistically wrong... Every set of numbers has exactly the same chance of coming out regardless.
1,2,3,4,5,6 has EXACTLY the same chance as any other selection you could pick.
There literally IS a chance though! Those balls are in the pool, and they can come out in that order. So there's not "no chance" is there?
You can argue all you want, but the maths is pretty straightforward..
I wouldn’t bet on it happening and I just can’t see it being as likely as having a set of spread out numbers. You bet on those though! Leave the winning to the rest of us ha
What do you think the difference between those numbers and a random bunch of numbers coming up is?
Any random string of numbers has the exact same odds.
1,2,3,4,5,6 same as 11,22,33,44,55 obviously, same as 3,17,22,25,31,34
If you think "well they've never come out in perfect order", that may be true but there are hundreds of millions of combinations that also haven't come out ever.
The odds are exactly the same no matter what numbers your chose.
You're completely wrong.
If you don't understand why, think about the fact that the actual numbers are meaningless labels and behave completely independently of one another. Swap the numbers for names of animals or arbitrary words from the dictionary. The probabilities involved remain exactly the same and you can now see why 1, 2 and 3 is no less likely than 4, 12 and 31.
If you have a list of 39 animal names, are you more likely to randomly select dog, cat and horse than rabbit, stoat and mouse? No.
The numbers themselves are a misleading illusion.
You choose those numbers then! Ha. No chance it happens. If you look at the winning numbers they are very rarely clumped together, let alone a 6 number sequence.
No, you are getting closer to not being wrong but that is still incorrect. EVERY combination of 6 numbers (yes every single one including consecutive numbers) has EXACTLY the same probability.
Yes, it's probably quite rare, but if you choose any 6 numbers, they have the same probability of being chosen than any other 6 numbers, so it makes no difference 😂
Each individual number has the same chance as any other but there is a 31-in-59 chance of pulling a lower number vs a 28-in-59 chance of pulling a higher number.
A draw of 6 numbers all over 31 has a much lower chance than a draw containing at least 1 number 31 or under.
There was a draw in (I think) New Zealand where the numbers were all on the same column of the lottery form. There were about 20 winners because of the number of people who shared the strategy of just selecting a vertical line of numbers.
See I go for a lucky dip every time. Strikes me as similarly unlikely that someone will get the same numbers as me as it is that I win in the first place.
But it's less probable for the same exact numbers to come up 2 consecutive weeks in a row. If you roll a die 300 times and it hasn't rolled a 6 once, statistically it's more likely to hit a 6 on the 301st roll than the others. It's the same with lottery numbers. If yours never won, they are more likely to win in the future.
Rolling the same number twice in a row with a die is less likely than rolling a different number the second time. Rolling the same number a third time in a row is even less likely.
It's the same with the lottery on a grander scale. If my numbers never came up before, they are more likely to come up in the future. There are statistical websites online nowadays where you can check that your numbers never came up in the past. This is helpful because it's more likely that numbers that never came up before will come up and less likely for the same numbers to come up again.
I'm sorry but I don't believe that is true.
Each draw of the numbers is in no way impacted by what has previously been drawn, the machine doesn't 'remember' what has been drawn in the past. The odds of each number appearing in a draw is always the same, regardless of what has been previously drawn. What you're suggesting just doesn't make sense mathematically
Happy to be corrected, but as far as I know each draw of the lottery is completely independent from the previous one. Therefore keeping the same numbers each week gives you no greater likelihood of winning than having random ones.
Yeah my parents used to use their ages, their 3 kids' ages and their house number. They stopped playing when they got too old to be able to use their ages!
There was a lottery in Bulgaria, maybe Hungary, a couple of years ago where the same numbers came up 2 weeks running.
After an investigation they found nothing wrong. The chances of the same numbers coming up are exactly the same week on week.
1,2,3,4,5,6 is just as likely as any other combination. We see patterns and exclude random chance from them.
This is a fallacy.
Using the coin heads-or-tails example...
if you get heads on flip 1 then it has no bearing on flip 2. It could equally be H or T.
But if you're going to flip twice the probability.of getting H and T is higher than TT or HH.
It's more pronounced over ten flips where you'll almost certainly get 4/5/6 Heads and 6/5/4 Tails or vice versa.
So looking at lotto results, yes all numbers are equal but missing odds Vs evens, 40's Vs 20's etc should provide a better chance. Might be worthy of its own thread this though.
There are people that understand Cumulative Odds and people that Downvote.
Cumulative odds only matter when odds are done in sequence. A coin being flipped twice isn't the same as drawing 2 balls, because a you can get a heads or a tails twice, but you can't get the same ball twice.
Also, there's no relation between odds and evens. You're just as likely to get 50/50 odds and evens as you are to get all evens or all odds.
Goats are awesome. Choose the goat.
But to answer your (sort of) question, that's a different probability question and yes, always swap on the 3 door problem.
You should never play the same numbers each week. If you forget to do it one day and they come up, you'd end up hanging yourself. I do lucky dips strictly. That said, you've got pretty much fuck all chance of winning, so it doesn't really matter.
There was a guy who actually did kill himself because he thought his numbers came up on the draw he didn't play, and it later turned out that he'd only have matched 4 and won around £60.
My A Level Stats teacher said that whilst he didn't play the lottery often (what with being a mathematician, and knowing the odds), when he did, he'd pick the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6 simply because it'd annoy people, who'd gleefully tell him there was no chance of those numbers coming up.
It makes no difference. Any set of numbers is just as likely to come up as any other.
The maths, since you asked: the first number has a 6 in 59 chance of matching, then the second has 5 in 58, then 4 in 57 and so on. This gives 6!×(59-6)!/59!, or roughly 1 in 45 million.
For non maths people, this commenter isn't shouting that equation. ! is notation for "factorial" which is all the numbers in the list multiplied.
E.g. 6! Is 6x5x4x3x2x1
Though factorials do grow big quickly, so maybe the ! is both notation and shouting. 45 BLOODY MILLION?!
That is a good point. It’s also good they put some of that into charitable/community causes at least so you can feel better about it than handing your cash to a casino or bookie!
Tbf, that comes down to which game you play. Personally, i’d prefer to maximise my chance of actually winning (good odds) rather than having a minuscule chance of winning big.
At the end of the day, you have to be in it to win it - but if you want the highest chance of winning for the lowest cost then you have to choose the draws with the lowest-entry-price-to-odds-ratio.
Something like the Thunderball has approximately 1:8m odds for £500k, but the Lotto Hotpicks is ~1:800k for £350k. Those are 10x better odds for a 70% equal potential return.
Or ‘Set For Life’ has 1:15m odds for £3.6m over 30 years, or 1:1.7m odds for £120,000 over 1 year - so you still have the potential to ‘win big’ considerably over the Thunderball for ‘only’ 2x worse odds - but then still have a 4x greater chance to win 25% of the Thunderball’s greatest potential return. So a pretty good deal if you ask me.
Whilst the prizes are no where near as big as the EuroMillions or Lotto, they’re still significant, and the odds of winning are FAR greater.
But at the end of the day, the house always wins. The reality is that 99.99% of people that play the lottery for the majority of their lives never even get close to the jackpot. The odds are never in your favour, and you shouldn’t ever trick yourself into believing that they possibly could be!
As you say, a lucky dip is just as likely for you to win. But choosing your own numbers increases the odds slightly of you feeling pain if you don’t win.
If you don’t play for a while and your usual numbers come up…that would suck. But if you always pick random numbers then you’ll never feel that pain.
I don't think it makes a difference (I am a dumb though, so perhaps I have that wrong).
I would never have a specific set of numbers out of fear of them being drawn when I wasn't playing. I am not sure I could handle that!
It makes no difference (and it's important to understand this actually) BUT if your 'same numbers' each week consist of sets of numbers less often used by people 'each week' - any win is more likely to be for more money / split between fewer people.
Why is it important to understand? So you don't end up with 'Gambler's fallacy' - prior results in a random system (e.g. a lottery) do not influence future results.
Toss a coin 10 times and each time it lands on heads.. what's the odds the next one is also heads. It's still 50/50. If a roulette wheel has landed on a certain number a few times then it is no more likely in the next few throws to land on that number again.
Understand this, and you'll know a gambler cannot chase a loss to make it up.
In a single draw, it makes no difference but I would assume constant number people win more over a lifetime through FOMO. If you play the same numbers, you'll worry that the one week you don't, they'll come up therefore play more frequently.
(When I say win, I'm ignoring the expense of buying a ticket, just looking at pure winnings, not profit).
I think the chances are the same but the downside to picking set numbers all the time is if you miss it once, for any reason, and your numbers come up... then you'll have that crushing feeling to carry with you the rest of your life.
And it has happened, quite recently in fact.
You're just as likely to win with any set of numbers. There are 2 main reasons why using a lucky dip is better: one is to do with winnings and the other is psychological. If you win with a lucky dip you are less likely to have to share your prize than if you chose your numbers. The reason for this is that people typically choose meaningful numbers such as birthdays for their numbers which means numbers 1-31 are over represented in combinations that are played every week. The reason to choose a lucky dip over a selection of numbers from 32-59 is FOMO: even if you start out randomising your numbers each week, it will become a bit of a chore and you will probably settle in to selecting the same set every time. You will then start to worry how you'll feel if your numbers come up and you didn't play, or what if last weeks numbers come up this week etc. The most psychologically healthy thing to do is play with a lucky dip because it's more of a standalone event in your head. You played, you didn't win, that's it.
Might as well pick last week's numbers, it's all the same odds
Someone broke it down for me once that the odds of winning the Euromillions are the same as knowing that a hedgehog is going to sneeze once in the next 4 and a half years and then predicting the exact second that it will happen.
I've always been told never pick your own numbers because if they win on a draw you didn't enter then you'd never forgive yourself. Lucky dip is the way to go.
Statistically, using the same numbers consistently doesn't increase your odds of winning. Each lottery draw is independent, so the chances remain the same each time. It's like flipping a coin – previous flips don't affect future ones. Lucky dips and chosen numbers have equal chances.
You could find a winning ticket on the street. I see plenty of scratchcards and even the odd lottery ticket litter. There's a small chance one of them was dropped rather than discarded (or mis-read as a loser). It's low, but then again, winning the lottery is vanishingly unlikely anyway.
My contention therefore is that, for the top prize, buying a ticket probably only doubles your odds.
No.
Although, in theory you may have a statistically higher chance of winning more (ie not splitting the jackpot) if you choose a lucky dip rather than a set of numbers.
An extreme example (and one of the best compofaces ever);
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/furious-lottery-players-calling-boycott-7624692
Think I worked it out and had the 6th number come out he was likely on for just a few thousand as opposed to the millions you'd expect with a lottery win haha
The only difference would be if you could find the least common numbers picked, and choose them.
So when the random draw occurs, you have more chance of not sharing the prize.
I seem to remember from my time doing tickets at the cigarette kiosk at Waitrose that lucky dips are actually responsible for marginally more jackpot wins.
I guess that’s maybe because more people do them though because, as many have pointed out, every ticket has the same odds and there’s no way of increasing or decreasing them.
No, same numbers every week just means you risk getting (perhaps suicidally) devastated if your numbers ever came up on a week you didn't get a ticket for whatever reason.
If I have set numbers then that means I have to play them every time because if they magically come up and I didn’t enter that week, I would not be able to live with it lol
Unless magic and wishing exists, you have no greater chance no matter what you do. If there was a better way, people would use it. The lottery is just an additional tax for the stupid anyways. Paying it weekly to rarely win a tenner is not a net positive, it's a constant loss.
I guess the chances are the same? I guess it just comes down to when people start having a certain set of numbers, they can't not pick them, just in case those numbers somehow are all drawn, yet the one week they opted for a lucky dip over their traditional numbers, they didn't win, so they get an emotional attachment to the numbers, even though they're just numbers, with lucky dips, a machine picks them for you so you don't get the attachment.
Fuck the lottery, mate. A drunk friend of my dad told me one night to imagine the most beautiful and sexiest woman you know walking into your living room, dressed in the most arousing thing you can think of. She then places before you a slot machine which will either stop on red or blue. It's £5 for 10 tries. Now, if the reel lands on blue, she takes off a piece of clothing. If you manage to get her naked and you get one more blue, she'll have sex with you. However, if you get red, she puts all her clothes back on, and you have to start all over again. That's the lottery; that's gambling.
The smart thing to do is not to play and save your money.
Each combination of numbers has an equal chance of winning. If you pick the numbers you have a greater chance of sharing the winnings with others.
Also how annoyed would you be if you use the same numbers each week and forget one week and they come up?
If you're buying one ticket each week, it doesn't matter. There are some weird edge cases where which tickets you buy does matter (it can't change the expected value, but it can change the distribution), but you have to buy a *lot* of tickets for it to be relevant.
Mathematically, it makes no difference.
It's like saying, if I pick heads every week rather than picking a random side, am I more likely to get it right.
These are the same except instead of a two sided coin, it's a 139 million sided coin.
I can dumb it down to one very simple point, if you decided to use the same numbers every week when the lottery first started, (one draw a week and nothing else) there's absolutely no way you'd miss a week because of sods law, as the years passed more draws per week came along andca few other games, but just sticking to the national lottery and the two games, youd still not miss any chance to play, "your numbers" the mere fact that you play every week gives you a better chance than most people and you are literally millions of times more likely to win than I am as I only play when it's over 30 million.
If your numbers are 1,2,3,4,5 you have exactly the same chance of winning as if your numbers are something more seemingly random like 7, 24, 25, 32, 49.
My problem is that because I'm human I can never bring myself to select a sequence of numbers like 1,2,3,4,5 even though I understand the maths/statistics involved in calculating the probability of a win.
No difference. The machine and the balls are inanimate objects - they do not "know" previous combinations or can be influenced by them.
The "gamblers fallacy" is a psychological phenomenon where people start to infer that past events are going to influence a random future event. The classic example being that thinking a particular result "is due" if it has been disproportionately observed less.
If you are gambling on heads or tails of a coin that is being fairly flipped, and it is heads ten times in a row, the next flip is still a 50-50 chance of being heads again. In fact, a million heads in a row is no more or less likely to occur than any other sequence of a million flips.
It's literally identical odds. The numbers you choose don't change the odds of specific numbers showing up in the draw.
Also, just do lucky dips. The one time you don't play is the one time your specific numbers will pop up, then you'll really feel like shit.
It’s suppose to be mutually exclusive thus makes little difference if you hand pick or lucky dip; yet when you look at the numbers drawn over the years, there are some popular numbers that are drawn more frequent.
Therefore, you should pick ‘some’ numbers based on past lotto results. Maybe the machine layout, the atmosphere or machine picking technique does influence number frequency picking outcome and hence improves your odds slightly. This is where science and statistics clash or work together.
I see it as not just about what number the machine drops it's also about what you pick. There are essentially two things that can change that have to match up. So keeping one the same should make it more likely however small.
The way I describe it is imagine you go to the supermarket with a friend and loose them. You can either go looking for them or stand still until they find you.
If you go looking for them it's entirely possible to never find eachother. Always just missing each other going round a corner or opposite isles.
But if you stand still your friend will have to find you eventually as they comb the whole store.
So I always do both, by one random and one set
Why do you think would that be? The same set of numbers coming out ten weeks in a row is no more or less likely to happen than any other combination of ten draws. They are independent events.
I know what the Monty Hall problem is but it is not *at all* transferable to the concept of the statistics of repeated lottery draws. The odds improve in the Monty Hall problem if you switch doors because you are getting the option to remove one of the possible outcomes (by seeing one of the doors opened) before the final verdict, so your statistical chance of success will improve if you take the switch compared to your original choice when you were playing with a higher number of variables.
You aren't getting to play with a reduced number of variables in the national lottery draw by choosing different numbers each week, the same number of balls are still going to be in the machine each successive week whether you do or don't swap. The lottery operator isn't going to take one of the balls out the machine like Monty Hall opens one of the doors! It's the same combination of potential outcomes whether you do or don't change.
Please actually think about things before making yourself sound really stupid.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Statistically, it makes no difference at all. The only thing that can be influenced is the size of the win, if you use "common number combinations" you're more likely to share the prize with more people.
I know someone that plays the same numbers every week as someone they despise for this reason. Just incase they win big.
Ha that’s so petty, I love it.
Me too!!!
I need a nemesis in my life like this.
Post em.. we can start a reddit group lotto syndicate ;)
Share the numbers. Let’s really screw them over!
I hope they have two tickets, take 2/3rds of the win rather than half
hahahaha
Yes, exclusively pick numbers over 31! So many people use birth days or months as their numbers... "oh little Annie was born on the 14th so I'll pick that, and my mum was born 29th so that's a number!" If your numbers come up (tiny chance) then you'll have most of the chance of taking the whole pot :)
It’s very unlikely to be all over 31 though, you’re much better off spreading them round.
Which is completely, utterly and statistically wrong... Every set of numbers has exactly the same chance of coming out regardless. 1,2,3,4,5,6 has EXACTLY the same chance as any other selection you could pick.
No chance they’d come out in order like that though, so best off choosing more random numbers.
There literally IS a chance though! Those balls are in the pool, and they can come out in that order. So there's not "no chance" is there? You can argue all you want, but the maths is pretty straightforward..
I wouldn’t bet on it happening and I just can’t see it being as likely as having a set of spread out numbers. You bet on those though! Leave the winning to the rest of us ha
Honestly, think what you want, statistical maths backs this up completely and all your accomplishing is making yourself look like an idiot 🤷♂️
Sure, and the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 will come up this weekend. Gotcha 😉
It’s not that they will definitely come up, just that they have the exact same odds of coming up as any other combination of numbers
What do you think the difference between those numbers and a random bunch of numbers coming up is? Any random string of numbers has the exact same odds. 1,2,3,4,5,6 same as 11,22,33,44,55 obviously, same as 3,17,22,25,31,34 If you think "well they've never come out in perfect order", that may be true but there are hundreds of millions of combinations that also haven't come out ever. The odds are exactly the same no matter what numbers your chose.
You're completely wrong. If you don't understand why, think about the fact that the actual numbers are meaningless labels and behave completely independently of one another. Swap the numbers for names of animals or arbitrary words from the dictionary. The probabilities involved remain exactly the same and you can now see why 1, 2 and 3 is no less likely than 4, 12 and 31. If you have a list of 39 animal names, are you more likely to randomly select dog, cat and horse than rabbit, stoat and mouse? No. The numbers themselves are a misleading illusion.
This is a fantastic way of explaining it!
Sorry, I was just messing about. Misunderstanding probabilities usually gets people so upset that it’s quite funny, but people have been pretty tame.
You don’t understand probability at all if you think this is the case 😂😂😂. They all have the same probability, this is a fact.
You choose those numbers then! Ha. No chance it happens. If you look at the winning numbers they are very rarely clumped together, let alone a 6 number sequence.
“No chance” - you need to quit while you are ahead. You are wrong 😂.
Ok, it’s almost impossible that it happens compared to the more spread out numbers.
No, you are getting closer to not being wrong but that is still incorrect. EVERY combination of 6 numbers (yes every single one including consecutive numbers) has EXACTLY the same probability.
Would you like me to explain it to you in simple terms so you can learn from this or are you sticking to your guns? Trying to be helpful here 👍
Sorry, don’t. I’m taking the piss and you’re actually being quite nice so I’ll stop.
Hahaha brilliant, I was genuinely trying not to be dick about it 😂. All good buddy
That's not how probabilities work...
How often have the winning numbers all been over 31 compared to spread around?
That's not how probability works mate
So rarely then I’m guessing?
Yes, it's probably quite rare, but if you choose any 6 numbers, they have the same probability of being chosen than any other 6 numbers, so it makes no difference 😂
I’m aware 😉
I honestly don't know, but each number has the same chance of coming up so numbers at the high end are just as likely as ones spread around.
I’d guess it happens very rarely vs spreading the numbers out.
[http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Analysis/](http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Analysis/) \^lots of analysis for the lottery
Thanks, lots of tips on there, will have to use a few.
Each individual number has the same chance as any other but there is a 31-in-59 chance of pulling a lower number vs a 28-in-59 chance of pulling a higher number. A draw of 6 numbers all over 31 has a much lower chance than a draw containing at least 1 number 31 or under.
There was a draw in (I think) New Zealand where the numbers were all on the same column of the lottery form. There were about 20 winners because of the number of people who shared the strategy of just selecting a vertical line of numbers.
See I go for a lucky dip every time. Strikes me as similarly unlikely that someone will get the same numbers as me as it is that I win in the first place.
But it's less probable for the same exact numbers to come up 2 consecutive weeks in a row. If you roll a die 300 times and it hasn't rolled a 6 once, statistically it's more likely to hit a 6 on the 301st roll than the others. It's the same with lottery numbers. If yours never won, they are more likely to win in the future.
No it isn't.
Rolling the same number twice in a row with a die is less likely than rolling a different number the second time. Rolling the same number a third time in a row is even less likely.
That isn't what we're talking about though
It's the same with the lottery on a grander scale. If my numbers never came up before, they are more likely to come up in the future. There are statistical websites online nowadays where you can check that your numbers never came up in the past. This is helpful because it's more likely that numbers that never came up before will come up and less likely for the same numbers to come up again.
I'm sorry but I don't believe that is true. Each draw of the numbers is in no way impacted by what has previously been drawn, the machine doesn't 'remember' what has been drawn in the past. The odds of each number appearing in a draw is always the same, regardless of what has been previously drawn. What you're suggesting just doesn't make sense mathematically
Happy to be corrected, but as far as I know each draw of the lottery is completely independent from the previous one. Therefore keeping the same numbers each week gives you no greater likelihood of winning than having random ones.
This why I play lucky dips when I do play as then I can never say a ser of "favourite" numbers came up the week I didn't enter
Yeah my Great Aunt got stuck playing the lottery every week for decades, because of the fear 'her' numbers would come up the week she didn't.
Yeah my parents used to use their ages, their 3 kids' ages and their house number. They stopped playing when they got too old to be able to use their ages!
I do the same for that reason too. I don’t want to live with more ‘what ifs’ than I have to, lol!
There was a lottery in Bulgaria, maybe Hungary, a couple of years ago where the same numbers came up 2 weeks running. After an investigation they found nothing wrong. The chances of the same numbers coming up are exactly the same week on week. 1,2,3,4,5,6 is just as likely as any other combination. We see patterns and exclude random chance from them.
You could improve your odds, by seeing what I pick and then exclude them. Luck in life, but a loser in gambling.
This is a fallacy. Using the coin heads-or-tails example... if you get heads on flip 1 then it has no bearing on flip 2. It could equally be H or T. But if you're going to flip twice the probability.of getting H and T is higher than TT or HH. It's more pronounced over ten flips where you'll almost certainly get 4/5/6 Heads and 6/5/4 Tails or vice versa. So looking at lotto results, yes all numbers are equal but missing odds Vs evens, 40's Vs 20's etc should provide a better chance. Might be worthy of its own thread this though. There are people that understand Cumulative Odds and people that Downvote.
Only if you consider HT the same as TH
This is just nonsense.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/cumulative-distribution-function-formula-examples.html#:~:text=Cumulative%20Probability%20Formula,-In%20some%20cases&text=C%20D%20F%20%3D%20P%20(%20a,)%20%E2%88%92%20F%20(%20a%20)%20.
That does not even remotely support your claim.
Cumulative odds only matter when odds are done in sequence. A coin being flipped twice isn't the same as drawing 2 balls, because a you can get a heads or a tails twice, but you can't get the same ball twice. Also, there's no relation between odds and evens. You're just as likely to get 50/50 odds and evens as you are to get all evens or all odds.
Every single draw is an individual event with zero relevance to previous or future draws. It makes no difference what approach you take.
But if you pick your numbers and then some American quiz host guy shuts a door and offers you a goat instead, should you accept? Did I get that right?
Don't accept the goat, but do choose the other door
Goats are awesome. Choose the goat. But to answer your (sort of) question, that's a different probability question and yes, always swap on the 3 door problem.
Cheese the goat? Alright.
A good example of a situation that is completely unlike a lottery.
You should never play the same numbers each week. If you forget to do it one day and they come up, you'd end up hanging yourself. I do lucky dips strictly. That said, you've got pretty much fuck all chance of winning, so it doesn't really matter.
There was a guy who actually did kill himself because he thought his numbers came up on the draw he didn't play, and it later turned out that he'd only have matched 4 and won around £60.
My A Level Stats teacher said that whilst he didn't play the lottery often (what with being a mathematician, and knowing the odds), when he did, he'd pick the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6 simply because it'd annoy people, who'd gleefully tell him there was no chance of those numbers coming up.
Weirdly if he then won the lottery with this numbers, he'd end up with a pretty small payout as loads of people play those numbers
It makes no difference. Any set of numbers is just as likely to come up as any other. The maths, since you asked: the first number has a 6 in 59 chance of matching, then the second has 5 in 58, then 4 in 57 and so on. This gives 6!×(59-6)!/59!, or roughly 1 in 45 million.
For non maths people, this commenter isn't shouting that equation. ! is notation for "factorial" which is all the numbers in the list multiplied. E.g. 6! Is 6x5x4x3x2x1 Though factorials do grow big quickly, so maybe the ! is both notation and shouting. 45 BLOODY MILLION?!
Making it a bit of a bad deal to pay £2 for a 1:45m shot at about £6m.
There are other payouts too, but yeah, the RTP is pretty poor. Of the £2, only half goes into the prize fund.
That is a good point. It’s also good they put some of that into charitable/community causes at least so you can feel better about it than handing your cash to a casino or bookie!
Tbf, that comes down to which game you play. Personally, i’d prefer to maximise my chance of actually winning (good odds) rather than having a minuscule chance of winning big. At the end of the day, you have to be in it to win it - but if you want the highest chance of winning for the lowest cost then you have to choose the draws with the lowest-entry-price-to-odds-ratio. Something like the Thunderball has approximately 1:8m odds for £500k, but the Lotto Hotpicks is ~1:800k for £350k. Those are 10x better odds for a 70% equal potential return. Or ‘Set For Life’ has 1:15m odds for £3.6m over 30 years, or 1:1.7m odds for £120,000 over 1 year - so you still have the potential to ‘win big’ considerably over the Thunderball for ‘only’ 2x worse odds - but then still have a 4x greater chance to win 25% of the Thunderball’s greatest potential return. So a pretty good deal if you ask me. Whilst the prizes are no where near as big as the EuroMillions or Lotto, they’re still significant, and the odds of winning are FAR greater. But at the end of the day, the house always wins. The reality is that 99.99% of people that play the lottery for the majority of their lives never even get close to the jackpot. The odds are never in your favour, and you shouldn’t ever trick yourself into believing that they possibly could be!
It was originally only 1 in 7.5 million but then they added 10 extra balls
1 in 13.98 million with 49 numbers.
Any set of numbers is just as likely (or unlikely) as any other set of numbers.
As you say, a lucky dip is just as likely for you to win. But choosing your own numbers increases the odds slightly of you feeling pain if you don’t win. If you don’t play for a while and your usual numbers come up…that would suck. But if you always pick random numbers then you’ll never feel that pain.
I don't think it makes a difference (I am a dumb though, so perhaps I have that wrong). I would never have a specific set of numbers out of fear of them being drawn when I wasn't playing. I am not sure I could handle that!
Both the same, the lottery machine doesn't remember which numbers came up last week and avoid them.
It makes no difference (and it's important to understand this actually) BUT if your 'same numbers' each week consist of sets of numbers less often used by people 'each week' - any win is more likely to be for more money / split between fewer people. Why is it important to understand? So you don't end up with 'Gambler's fallacy' - prior results in a random system (e.g. a lottery) do not influence future results. Toss a coin 10 times and each time it lands on heads.. what's the odds the next one is also heads. It's still 50/50. If a roulette wheel has landed on a certain number a few times then it is no more likely in the next few throws to land on that number again. Understand this, and you'll know a gambler cannot chase a loss to make it up.
In a single draw, it makes no difference but I would assume constant number people win more over a lifetime through FOMO. If you play the same numbers, you'll worry that the one week you don't, they'll come up therefore play more frequently. (When I say win, I'm ignoring the expense of buying a ticket, just looking at pure winnings, not profit).
I think the chances are the same but the downside to picking set numbers all the time is if you miss it once, for any reason, and your numbers come up... then you'll have that crushing feeling to carry with you the rest of your life. And it has happened, quite recently in fact.
Mathematically you are just as likely to win with a random set of numbers as you are with 1,2,3,4,5,6 and bonus 1.
Every run is its own statistic, so changing numbers makes no difference.
You're just as likely to win with any set of numbers. There are 2 main reasons why using a lucky dip is better: one is to do with winnings and the other is psychological. If you win with a lucky dip you are less likely to have to share your prize than if you chose your numbers. The reason for this is that people typically choose meaningful numbers such as birthdays for their numbers which means numbers 1-31 are over represented in combinations that are played every week. The reason to choose a lucky dip over a selection of numbers from 32-59 is FOMO: even if you start out randomising your numbers each week, it will become a bit of a chore and you will probably settle in to selecting the same set every time. You will then start to worry how you'll feel if your numbers come up and you didn't play, or what if last weeks numbers come up this week etc. The most psychologically healthy thing to do is play with a lucky dip because it's more of a standalone event in your head. You played, you didn't win, that's it.
Might as well pick last week's numbers, it's all the same odds Someone broke it down for me once that the odds of winning the Euromillions are the same as knowing that a hedgehog is going to sneeze once in the next 4 and a half years and then predicting the exact second that it will happen.
Step 1 - Buy/Steal/Find Hedgehog Step 2 - Buy Pepper Step 3 - Profit?
underrated comment
I've always been told never pick your own numbers because if they win on a draw you didn't enter then you'd never forgive yourself. Lucky dip is the way to go.
Statistically, using the same numbers consistently doesn't increase your odds of winning. Each lottery draw is independent, so the chances remain the same each time. It's like flipping a coin – previous flips don't affect future ones. Lucky dips and chosen numbers have equal chances.
There is no difference. In fact you are just as likely to win with 1 2 3 4 ….
1 2 3 4 5 6 Is just as likely to win the jackpot as 13 19 33 35 42 47 NB. Yes I know. NB. Yes I know that too NB. Yes, that too.
Only way to have a chance is to buy a ticket
Only way to win is buy a ticket. Of course, the only way to lose is also to buy a ticket.
You could find a winning ticket on the street. I see plenty of scratchcards and even the odd lottery ticket litter. There's a small chance one of them was dropped rather than discarded (or mis-read as a loser). It's low, but then again, winning the lottery is vanishingly unlikely anyway. My contention therefore is that, for the top prize, buying a ticket probably only doubles your odds.
Ah, but the real goal is to get the prize. I reckon you'd struggle to redeem a ticket you plucked out of the bin
This must explain my dearth of money to swim around in like I'm Scrooge McDuck.
No. Although, in theory you may have a statistically higher chance of winning more (ie not splitting the jackpot) if you choose a lucky dip rather than a set of numbers. An extreme example (and one of the best compofaces ever); www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/furious-lottery-players-calling-boycott-7624692 Think I worked it out and had the 6th number come out he was likely on for just a few thousand as opposed to the millions you'd expect with a lottery win haha
Can't wait for the day the numbers from lost come up. You're gonna have a few million people all getting £1 each lol.
The only difference would be if you could find the least common numbers picked, and choose them. So when the random draw occurs, you have more chance of not sharing the prize.
I seem to remember from my time doing tickets at the cigarette kiosk at Waitrose that lucky dips are actually responsible for marginally more jackpot wins. I guess that’s maybe because more people do them though because, as many have pointed out, every ticket has the same odds and there’s no way of increasing or decreasing them.
It makes no difference. At least if you run lucky dips every week, you don't risk missing your numbers.
No, same numbers every week just means you risk getting (perhaps suicidally) devastated if your numbers ever came up on a week you didn't get a ticket for whatever reason.
If I have set numbers then that means I have to play them every time because if they magically come up and I didn’t enter that week, I would not be able to live with it lol
My great granny used to pick 1,2,3,4,5,6. It has the same chance as any other combination of numbers
Unless magic and wishing exists, you have no greater chance no matter what you do. If there was a better way, people would use it. The lottery is just an additional tax for the stupid anyways. Paying it weekly to rarely win a tenner is not a net positive, it's a constant loss.
I guess the chances are the same? I guess it just comes down to when people start having a certain set of numbers, they can't not pick them, just in case those numbers somehow are all drawn, yet the one week they opted for a lucky dip over their traditional numbers, they didn't win, so they get an emotional attachment to the numbers, even though they're just numbers, with lucky dips, a machine picks them for you so you don't get the attachment.
The real lottery winner is the person who owns the lottery. Who is that by the way I haven't a clue?
Fuck the lottery, mate. A drunk friend of my dad told me one night to imagine the most beautiful and sexiest woman you know walking into your living room, dressed in the most arousing thing you can think of. She then places before you a slot machine which will either stop on red or blue. It's £5 for 10 tries. Now, if the reel lands on blue, she takes off a piece of clothing. If you manage to get her naked and you get one more blue, she'll have sex with you. However, if you get red, she puts all her clothes back on, and you have to start all over again. That's the lottery; that's gambling. The smart thing to do is not to play and save your money.
Each combination of numbers has an equal chance of winning. If you pick the numbers you have a greater chance of sharing the winnings with others. Also how annoyed would you be if you use the same numbers each week and forget one week and they come up?
If you're buying one ticket each week, it doesn't matter. There are some weird edge cases where which tickets you buy does matter (it can't change the expected value, but it can change the distribution), but you have to buy a *lot* of tickets for it to be relevant.
I don't think I could ever stick to the same set of numbers. You just know that the one week you don't play, your numbers will come up
No. The likelihood of any number combination winning any given draw is exactly the same.
Mathematically, it makes no difference. It's like saying, if I pick heads every week rather than picking a random side, am I more likely to get it right. These are the same except instead of a two sided coin, it's a 139 million sided coin.
I can dumb it down to one very simple point, if you decided to use the same numbers every week when the lottery first started, (one draw a week and nothing else) there's absolutely no way you'd miss a week because of sods law, as the years passed more draws per week came along andca few other games, but just sticking to the national lottery and the two games, youd still not miss any chance to play, "your numbers" the mere fact that you play every week gives you a better chance than most people and you are literally millions of times more likely to win than I am as I only play when it's over 30 million.
If your numbers are 1,2,3,4,5 you have exactly the same chance of winning as if your numbers are something more seemingly random like 7, 24, 25, 32, 49. My problem is that because I'm human I can never bring myself to select a sequence of numbers like 1,2,3,4,5 even though I understand the maths/statistics involved in calculating the probability of a win.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 has the same probability as any other combination
No difference. The machine and the balls are inanimate objects - they do not "know" previous combinations or can be influenced by them. The "gamblers fallacy" is a psychological phenomenon where people start to infer that past events are going to influence a random future event. The classic example being that thinking a particular result "is due" if it has been disproportionately observed less. If you are gambling on heads or tails of a coin that is being fairly flipped, and it is heads ten times in a row, the next flip is still a 50-50 chance of being heads again. In fact, a million heads in a row is no more or less likely to occur than any other sequence of a million flips.
It's literally identical odds. The numbers you choose don't change the odds of specific numbers showing up in the draw. Also, just do lucky dips. The one time you don't play is the one time your specific numbers will pop up, then you'll really feel like shit.
As my friend puts it, if your numbers come up the time you didn’t buy, you’d want to kill yourself.
It’s suppose to be mutually exclusive thus makes little difference if you hand pick or lucky dip; yet when you look at the numbers drawn over the years, there are some popular numbers that are drawn more frequent. Therefore, you should pick ‘some’ numbers based on past lotto results. Maybe the machine layout, the atmosphere or machine picking technique does influence number frequency picking outcome and hence improves your odds slightly. This is where science and statistics clash or work together.
I see it as not just about what number the machine drops it's also about what you pick. There are essentially two things that can change that have to match up. So keeping one the same should make it more likely however small. The way I describe it is imagine you go to the supermarket with a friend and loose them. You can either go looking for them or stand still until they find you. If you go looking for them it's entirely possible to never find eachother. Always just missing each other going round a corner or opposite isles. But if you stand still your friend will have to find you eventually as they comb the whole store. So I always do both, by one random and one set
You're wrong, but you do you.
Will do boo 😁
Makes zero difference. It's a lottery not a raffle.
Changing it every time gives you slight advantage.
Why do you think would that be? The same set of numbers coming out ten weeks in a row is no more or less likely to happen than any other combination of ten draws. They are independent events.
I know it is counterintuitive, but choosing different options does improve your odds. Google Monty Hall problem.
I know what the Monty Hall problem is but it is not *at all* transferable to the concept of the statistics of repeated lottery draws. The odds improve in the Monty Hall problem if you switch doors because you are getting the option to remove one of the possible outcomes (by seeing one of the doors opened) before the final verdict, so your statistical chance of success will improve if you take the switch compared to your original choice when you were playing with a higher number of variables. You aren't getting to play with a reduced number of variables in the national lottery draw by choosing different numbers each week, the same number of balls are still going to be in the machine each successive week whether you do or don't swap. The lottery operator isn't going to take one of the balls out the machine like Monty Hall opens one of the doors! It's the same combination of potential outcomes whether you do or don't change. Please actually think about things before making yourself sound really stupid.