Winning Lotto Numbers

Are All Lotto Numbers Created Equal? On Saturday night, 19 Dec 2009, 27 Australians went to bed thinking they had won maybe $1,000,000.00.

They awoke on Sunday morning to find it was $148,148.27.

Here are the results: 27 winners!

Courtesy of http://www.nswlotteries.com.au

I guess they might have a different opinion this morning on the question, “Are all lottery numbers equal?”

The Traditional Lotto Numbers Argument.

Often this is a good response to a bad question – do all lotto numbers have the same chance of coming out.

“Yes” is correct as far as the first ball is concerned – but we need to dig deeper than that. Supposing for a moment that you you are playing a 45-ball lottery and the first number drawn is an even lotto number – then there are 23 odd lotto numbers and 21 even lotto numbers left. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that there is a small advantage to an odd number being drawn.

The Human Factor in Winning the Lottery.

What so-called experts forget is that the randomness of lotto is significantly altered by human behaviour – as the above results show. This is what lotto experts call the “birthday numbers” theory – all numbers are under 31.” Many people use 1 to 31 because they choose their lotto numbers according to the birthdays of family members.

Another human behaviour factor is that most people start marking numbers from 1 onwards – resulting in all 6 lotto numbers being marked before they get to the high numbers.

Winning Lotto Numbers and Payouts

In general, if the winning lotto numbers are all low, there will be more winners than on an average week. If numbers are all high, there will be fewer winners than on an average week. While this is true 99% of the time, there are exceptions to all rules.

A few years ago, a New South Wales State Lottery had 21 winners because all of the winning lotto numbers were low. Several years ago, the Florida State Lottery analysed the “most played lotto numbers.” Result: 1-2-3-4-5-6; if these numbers had come out, there would have been thousands of winners.

What Lotto Numbers Should You Play?

The book, “Winning Lotto Secrets” suggests 1-3 numbers from each third of the total lotto numbers. For example, for a 49-ball lottery it should be 1-3 numbers from 1-16, 1-3 numbers from 17-33, and 1-3 numbers from 34-49.

Checking 1,000 Tattslotto numbers shows the above worked for 663 of the 1,000 draws – or roughly 2 weeks out of 3 on average. All winning lotto numbers below 23, as in the above result, worked for just 13 of the 1,000 weeks – on average, less than once a year.

So not only does it not happen very often, but it pays peanuts when it does win!

If you are really serious about winning the lottery, then you need to learn the rules! Check out “www.lottery-and-lotto.com” for lotto statistics, lottery systems and lotto strategies.

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