An analysis of the 3,000 draws since the Lotto began in November 1994, the ball that has been pulled the least is 13, while the luckiest is 38
A study of 30 years of lottery balls revealed the luckiest and unluckiest numbers you can choose for the National Lottery draw.
In the three decades and 3,000 draws since the Lotto began, there is no ball that has been pulled fewer times than the unlucky number 13 (358). Whereas, the number 38, would appear to be the luckiest number, having been pulled on 451 occasions.
According to the study, the best numbers you could pull together with a chance of winning the pot are 38, 23, 31, 11, 45 and 33. However, the margin between those lucky balls and the rest of the pot is minute. This means it’s incredibly unlikely that you could win big by relying on those numbers, reports the MailOnline.
However, several well-respected mathematicians feel they may have cracked the 27-ticket combination to guarantee you a prize, but you may find you spend way more than you get back. By using the combination on the draws since May 18 this year, you would’ve finished the year with a total winnings of £480 after laying out a whopping £2,790 on the amount of £2 tickets needed.
September was the month with the most potential when half of the winnings – £240 – would have been scooped. The “hack” was created by David Cushing and David Stewart, statisticians from the University of Manchester. The theory works on placing each number between one and 59 in pairs of triplets in a certain order.
The study used data from the Mersey World Lottery, which is an online lottery statistics collection project run by enthusiast Richard Lloyd, which has tracked all 21,000 balls released in the years since the BBC1 show was launched by Noel Edmunds in November 1994. There are 45 million possible combinations.
Earlier today, it emerged that Britain’s most generous lottery winner said he still checks the price of socks after giving away most of his £7.6million jackpot prize.
Widower Ray Wragg, 86, and his late wife Barbara gave away more than £5.5 million of their National Lottery winnings. Thousands of people benefited from the generosity of the Sheffield couple who’d never been abroad until they hit the jackpot in 2000.
Retired roofer Ray and Barbara, a former nurse, gave away more than 70 per cent of their winnings. The couple, who received a special trophy from lottery organisers for their philanthropy, helped their family and friends and 17 separate charities.
Barbara, who died of sepsis in 2018 at the age of 77, previously said their winnings were “too much for two people”. The couple had spent 31 years on the trot having holidays in Torquay as Barbara was too scared to fly.
