Win big on the National Lottery
Well OK, I can't guarantee you millions of pounds. After all, I am not living with Playboy bunnies on a luxury yacht moored off Monaco.
However, science can give us a few insights into people's behaviour that means if you do happen to win, you hopefully won't have to share the jackpot.
The chances of winning the National Lottery are around 14 million to one. By contrast, the odds on the human race being wiped out by an asteroid impact this year are just one in two-and-a-half million.
So picking all six numbers is no mean feat.
Spare a thought for those who are lucky enough to chose five numbers plus the bonus ball. The odds are the same as a jackpot win but they pick up a mere ã100,000 or so rather than the real big bucks.
(The odds on five numbers are one in 55,000, four numbers 1:1,000, three numbers 1:56)
So when you're next at the lottery booth, what numbers to pick?
Well DO NOT pick 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Even though the sequence looks unlikely, the chance these six numbers come up are exactly the same as any other.
Chance doesn't give a monkeys about our numbering system and the odds on any number being rolled out is one in 49, no matter what numbers came out the spinning machine before.
So why not choose the above sequence? Because everybody else does. Ten thousand people. So even if the numbers come up, no-one's retiring.
Also avoid 7,14,21,28,35,42, this run of sevens is again very popular.
If you are going to be lucky enough to win the jackpot, go high. Face to face with a ticket, I'd try to be random while making sure I had at least a few numbers above 31. More people choose 31 or below because they use birthdays.
A study into the Swiss lottery suggests there are a few other ways of making sure you're on your own. They looked at things like the design of the ticket to come up some rules to increase the odds of being a big winner.
It says you should choose randomly but then chuck the ticket unless:
⢠the numbers total at least 177
⢠3,4 or 5 of them are on the edge of the ticket
⢠they do not form a single cluster, nor are they spread as six isolated numbers.
Following these rules will not improve your chances of a win, but does boost your chances of winning big!
If anyone does bag the bonanza, don't forget your dear uncle Weird Science!
Weird Science Factoid: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321. What are the odds?
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Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
The Lottery Numbers chances of winning the National Lottery are around 14 million to one. By contrast, the odds on the human race being wiped out by an asteroid impact this year are just one in two-and-a-half million.