Two Lotto winners sharing £66m jackpot aimed high as Sussex maths expert suggested
University of Sussex maths teacher Dr John Haigh was in demand last week as the national media sought advice from an expert in probability in choosing national lottery numbers.
In the days leading up to Saturday’s draw, Dr Haigh emphasised that all the 45 million or so different combinations had the same chance of winning - but that choosing high numbers at random would tend to give a better chance of sharing the record £66million Lotto jackpot with fewer other people.
And on Saturday (9 January) just two ticket holders received £33,035,323 each after their draw numbers (58, 47, 27, 46, 52 and 26), totalling 256, were picked.
Speaking before the draw, Dr Haigh told the Mirror newspaper: “Lots of people will use birthday numbers and their choices are biased towards one up to 31. People have got lucky numbers, which are unlikely to be 56 and more likely to be low numbers like three or seven.
“If you make sure your choices add up to at least 200 that still gives you several million combinations, but it suitably biases it towards the higher numbers that many other people tend to avoid.”
Dr Haigh, author of the book Taking Chances: Winning with Probability, has never bought a lottery ticket himself, noting the long odds against success and the low return in normal draws. He has also written about mathematical ideas in TV quiz shows, card games and board games.