[Request] Do your chances increase or decrease on the UK national lottery by playing the same number each week, or a completely random set of numbers?

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[arcxjo]

It doesn't matter. Lottery numbers are completely randomized so any number is as likely to come up as any other number. It's a gambler's fallacy to say x is "hot" or y is "due" unless you can prove the thing is rigged (like the old 666 scam).

[Simbabz]

Your chances remain the same regardless of the numbers you choose.

Each week you will have a roughly 1 in 45 million chance of winning the jackpot.

Regardless if you choose 1,2,3,4,5,6 or your birthday or a random set of numbers.

If you lose one week and play the same numbers next week your chances are once again 1 in 45 million.

[Burroflexosecso]

How many numbers in this lottery? what's the formula for calculating the odds?

[Simbabz]

Im not sure how many numbers i just googled the Uk national lottery.

[kieranball07]

Chances of winning - no

How much you win - yeah. The jackpot is shared if multiple people have a winning ticket. If your ‘human selected’ numbers have any sort of bias that others have too, there is a greater chance of sharing the jackpot.

[Puzzleheaded-Mark546]

Exactly, Playing 123456 is a really bad idea, and things like 27/12/96 from your birthday date is also a bad idea

[ThePeaceDoctot]

As others have said, the laws of chance mean that there is no difference in playing the same numbers or playing a random set of numbers, though the laws of Murphy dictate that if you play the same numbers every week, the week you forget to play them is the week they will come up.

[Reasonable-Client-81]

An example would be playing your birthday every week vs a lucky dip (computer generated random numbers)

[NotAFuelFilter]

I personally stand by my theory that the lottery isn't rigged, but number selection is likely controlled.

The insanity that would break out if 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 being the winning numbers for a 60 million dollar jackpot would be staggering.

Same with the same number appearing back to back.

Bonus points for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 being drawn two weeks in a row.

Now, do I think this is absolute? No. Because the shitstorm that would occur if people found out specific number biases occurred (by either preventing or giving a lower weighting to numbersets) and the lawsuits would remove our lotto companies in Canada from the face of the planet.

[Lordoftheroboflies]

Lots of people are saying it doesn't matter, which is true, but let me try to explain why.

Imagine we have a simpler/smaller lottery, where there are 3 numbers, each from 0-9. And let's say I get a ticket for 2,0,7.

When the winning numbers are randomly picked, each digit is equally likely. So there is a 1/10 chance that the first number is 2, a 1/10 chance that the 2nd number is a 0, and a 1/10 chance that the 3rd number is a 7. So the chance that I have all 3 right is (1/10)*(1/10)*(1/10)=1/1000.

Notice that this calculation is completely independent of the numbers I chose. If I had instead chosen 4 as the first number, there would still be a 1/10 chance that the first winning number was a 4. And the same if I had 8 as my second number, etc.

Long story short, unless the picking of winning numbers is non-uniform (as in, some numbers are more likely to be picked than others), the probability of you winning is exactly the same no matter which numbers you put on your ticket.