National Lottery rollover: How to make most of numbers game
There may be no such thing as a winning lottery strategy but many serious players employ a game plan.
Tracking, or frequency analysis, involves keeping a note of winning numbers over a period of time on the basis that these 'hot' numbers should appear at a higher frequency in future games. Some players also track 'cold' numbers - and avoid them.
Fans of the wheeling strategy make up a master list of their best picks and play them in varied combinations. Wheel designs include circles, grids, graphs and triangles, and different types of coding, such as alphabetical or numerical. Players either buy or make their own wheels.
The lucky number method is similar to the tracking system, encouraging players to stick to one lucky number. To boost their chances, they need to play regularly or, alternatively, less often but buy more tickets for a specific draw.
Many who use this method, play only when the jackpot is particularly lucrative, like now.
Many veteran lottery players choose numbers over 31. This does not improve their chances of winning but will boost the pay-out if they do. The simple reasoning is that most people select numbers based on birthdays, so fewer players are choosing numbers between 32 and 50
Mathematically, lottery pools are the best way to hit lucky. For a small contribution each week, syndicate members increase their chances of winning directly related to the number of people in the group, even if they do have to share the jackpot if it works out.
Most of the largest lottery jackpots have been won by bulk-buying syndicates - more than one out of every seven million lottery prizes are collected by a lottery pool.
If is also worth remembering that some lottery numbers come up more often than others, although no one knows why. The top seven numbers to win the National Lottery since it was launched in 1994 have been 23, 40, 44, 38, 30 and 33. This may be random but it is certainly worth considering.
And finally, many people believe that the time and place where you buy your lottery ticket can help determine a win. Statistically, it should not make any difference but, as the lottery tables show, jackpot winners, more often than not, buy their tickets in 'lucky' spots, and usually on a Friday night.
