We’re just about verging on the realms of ‘superstition’ here. And lottery companies do like it when we get protective over numbers, because it means we play more often, i.e. “I can’t miss this week, it might be the week my numbers come up”. They’re well aware of the psychology and certainly wouldn’t do anything to harm the perception – why hurt your ticket sales? . It works really well for them when they decide to introduce an extra draw in the week too – “must play my numbers on Wednesday as well now, just in case…”.

It doesn’t actually matter if you play the same numbers for 10 years straight, they are still just as likely to come up in the next draw as any other set of numbers. So sticking or changing really doesn’t make any difference.

But if you like your numbers, by all means stick with them as there’s no harm in it.

It’s not playing at all that really hurts your chances

This is a common misconception. But changing your numbers or not makes no difference to your chances at all.

LG

If you play regularly, though, I would think that it would be best to pick a set of numbers and stick with it. You can, again, pick them yourself or let the machine pick them, but once you have “your numbers” I think it makes sense to stick with them.

Think of your numbers as a target, and the draw is the ‘dart’ … if you’re constantly moving the target around (changing numbers… random quick-pick each week), you’re relying on two random events (the draw and your numbers) to sync up each time. If you keep your numbers the same for each draw, your ‘target’ stays still, and only the weekly drawing numbers have to line up.

I’m no mathematician, statistician, or even a great gambler, but this is just what makes sense to me. I could be completely wrong about it. But just imagine the sinking-feeling you’d get if your numbers from ‘last week’ won ‘this week’ and you had gone and changed them.

After all, it would still be a fair draw as all combinations have the same chance of being drawn.

The main reason they wouldn’t though is rollovers!

Lottery companies love rollovers. Big jackpots create great publicity and sell a lot more tickets.

It’s the only reason there are lottery games with insane odds. Look at the chances of winning Mega Millions! Hugely popular but not the game those players should be spending their money on.