Martingaling the National Lottey

[Dave]

I have decided to set myself a challenge........ to win the lottery!

For the past decade at least I've been entering the lottery every Weds and Sat and the most I've ever won was £62 - and that was fecking ages ago!!! Soooo.... taking into account the gamblers adages of 'I have to win it sooner or later' and 'if I buy 2 tickets I've got twice as much chance of winning the lottery', I've decided to Martingale the lottery....

How does it work? Well I'm too late for tonight's lottery so I'll start next week, and the plan is: buy 1 ticket for next weeks lottery... buy 2 the week after... 3 the week after that... etc etc.. til I win the Jackpot! I know that isn't 'technically' Martingaling, but if I did it properly by doubling up each time then I'd be buying £4096 tickets after 3 months and that's just too scary!! I'm only gonna enter the Saturday lottery so it's weekly, and I'm gonna stick to buying 'lucky dip' tickets so there's no worries about getting used to doing the same numbers. I'll report back here what my numbers are each week when I've bought my ticket and I'll let you all know when I'm a millionaire (I predict I'll win it after week 6 ).

I'll probably carry it on for about 3 months and see how it goes but whatever happens, it'll be an interesting experiment....

Anyone else up for the challenge!? This has gotta be post of the month material if someone wins the big-un!!

[Dave]

Week 1's numbers for the draw on Sat 13th Feb were: 1, 3, 10, 12, 22, 31 - only had one number (22).
Funny enough, I wrote "Bet they come up on Wednesday now... " and surprise surprise, Wednesdays numbers were 3, 22, 27, 31, 38, and 49 and I would've had 3 numbers and a tenner!!!

Week 2's numbers for the draw on Sat 20th Feb are: 5, 9, 22, 32, 40 and 42 AND 3, 19, 27, 28, 42 and 49

[Andy]

I think you would need to be using the same numbers to be closer to Martingaling it, on the basis that if they didnt come in last week they must eventually. You are just betting more and more each week until you win.

Which is just as good a way as any I suppose, I dont think the same numbers will help you at all it would just make it a better analogy. Im afraid im not up for it, but if the Jackpot ever gets to over £20m again and there are only 14m combinations if we can muster together the £14m I would consider buying every ticket.

A) The retailer gets 5% of everyticket sold, if buying 14m of the things get a deal to get the majority of that back from them.

B) You will get a hell of a lot of 3 numbers, 4 numbers and some 5 number combinations as well as the Jackpot.

C) You buying that many tickets will single handedly raise all those payout amounts, 50% of sales go to the prizefund so you get that back anyway.

D) You will hit the Jackpot, obviously the key thing is how many others get it too.


A lot of effort, and takes A LOT of capital, but I think it has been done before in continental lotteries and the syndicates did profit. They got accused of "cheating" by the media but actually they did nothing wrong and kept it all.

[Human123]

Heres a thought,

have the same numbers ever come up more then once?


So to narrow it down you could just select number combinations that have never previously come up.

[advanta]

Heres a thought,

have the same numbers ever come up more then once?


So to narrow it down you could just select number combinations that have never previously come up.

As a matter of historical record I don't think they have but it hardly matters. Any combination of numbers is very unlikely to come up in a given week but that doesn't mean that they cannot.

If you eliminated all the numbers that had come up previously you would not increase or decrease your chances of winning the lottery.

[Andy]

I think he was joking.

I hope he was joking!

[LFC81Eoin]

just pick 3 , 7 , 14 , 22, 28 , 29

there the most likely

[Super_Dash]

just pick 3 , 7 , 14 , 22, 28 , 29

there the most likely

No

2 3 5 7 11 13

surely the first 6 prime numbers are the most likely?

[cleaner]

IMHO if you are after lottery and play every week, then syndicate is the best approach (either between you and friends or more formalised like e-lottery).
If doing it via 'friends' syndicate then apply the same methodology as pro syndicates do, not just buying random tickets.

[Dave]

To be honest I know this isn't really Martingaling the lottery but I thought the title sounded better than 'Trying to win the lottery using a 'sort-of-but-not-really-a-system'

Random numbers are def. the way to go as 1) It makes it easier when buying to tickets to just say '15 lucky dips please' (as I've already said I think it'd be better to actually beholding physical tickets for this experiment rather than doing it online). I don't think any numbers are 'more likely' to come up and I don't think it'd make any difference using the same numbers or random numbers.

It's all a laugh anyways - if I run it for 3 months then worst case I'll have spent about £77 - best case I'll be rich rich rich!!