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Chronicle Live

National

Catherine Furze

Four tips that could increase your chances of winning the lottery

Lottery National Lottery United Kingdom EuroMillions

It Could be You is probably the National Lottery's best-known slogan, but the chance of actually netting one of the big prizes is vanishingly small.

From the original National Lottery, first played in 1994 and all its spin-off games, to the Health Lottery and the Postcode Lottery, there's no shortage of choice of you fancy a flutter. We have all dreamt of winning the lottery at some point in our lives, but which lottery actually gives you the best odds of winning?

Gaming expert Francisc Csiki from CasinoAlpha has revealed a fascinating guide to the likelihood of winning UK lotteries and some top tips that could increase your chances. Although around 60% of the UK population takes part in the National Lottery, your choice of draw will intimately depend upon where your priorities lie when entering a lottery.

Which is the best lottery for:

A Big Win: EuroMillions provides the biggest jackpot, but choosing the winning numbers is unlikely. This is generally the case for all options: a high maximum prize is counter-balanced by low odds. For the EuroMillions, for example, there is a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of winning the jackpot but a 1 in 13 chance of winning any amount of payout.

To support a good cause: UK lotteries have an appeal in the fact that a considerable part of their revenues goes into funding for good causes. If you want to show your goodwill along with gaining a chance to win a prize, you should buy tickets to raffles with higher donated margins. The People’s Postcode draws has the most generous donations, with 33% of all revenues going to good causes. The Irish lottery comes in second with 30%.

Any chance of winning: For your best chances of success, the People’s Postcode draw is the go-to game – an option further recommended considering the high revenue margin donated. Participants can play in daily, biweekly, and monthly draws, with jackpots of £1,000, £30,000, and £7.9 million. The daily draw awards the money to one winner in 20 postcodes, and the Saturday and Sunday draws provide the award to a player in one postcode. The monthly draw money is spread among one postcode area’s participants. However, receiving a return for entering the raffle does not mean you will necessarily break even.

How to help your odds

Lucky numbers do not help: While you may think these numbers to be very personal to you, there is a big chance that you share your lucky numbers with thousands of other players. Additionally, lucky numbers, dates of birth or other such combinations usually cover a small range of possibilities. You are essentially lowering your likelihood of getting the right match alone. Tip: Do not choose birthday numbers, common strings (1,2,3,4,5,6), or “lucky numbers.” Pick double digits higher than 31, as they will not be included in birthday tickets.

There is a secret to choosing numbers: Statistical data collected in 2020 on Powerball winning numbers concluded that two numbers had a multiple hit frequency: 21, with a 43% greater chance, and 23, with a 58% greater chance. Tip: You may want to choose 23 and 21 on your ticket.

Playing the same ticket in subsequent draws does nothing: Lottery draws are independent and random events. This means that they do not influence each other. Many sense that if a combination came up in last week’s draw, it would not do so this week. However, this is just as likely as any other string of numbers. Fortunately, even though playing the same ticket will not increase your chance of winning, it will not decrease it either. Tip: Playing the same ticket repeatedly will neither improve nor impair your likelihood of success.

But buying more tickets helps: If you play multiple ticket variations in the same draw, you will have a better chance. If each ticket has a 1 in 100,000 probability, buying ten tickets with different combinations gives you a 10 in 100,000 likelihood or 1 in 10,000. This still does not considerably lower the probability but gives you a better chance.

Remain level-headed: Do not fall into the rabbit hole of lotteries and master plans for the next big draw. The odds of winning should show that your actual chance of getting something is slim, no matter your approach. You should not obsess over the results or treat them as anything more than a pastime and most importantly, knowing how to stay in control is vital in any gambling activity.

The odds of winning the UK lotteries

People's Postcode Lottery

Max prize: £7.9m (divided in a postcode area)

Max win odds: 1 in 1,080,000

Any win odds: 1 in 1.3

Health Millions

Max prize: £5m

Max win odds: 1 in 79,453,500

Any win odds: 1 in 3

Lotto

Max prize: £5m

Max win odds: 1 in 45,057,474