Many Lotto players believe their personally chosen numbers, such as family birth dates, give them a unique edge. However, a new analysis of New Zealand Lotto data shows that hundreds of other players often make identical choices, significantly impacting prize shares. Researchers examined a dataset spanning 400 million played numbers across 70 million lines (six-tuple combinations) to understand how players select numbers and whether these choices truly matter.
How New Zealand Players Pick Their Numbers
While most players understand that every six-tuple has an equal chance of being drawn, certain patterns attract disproportionate attention. The most favored combinations include straight lines, diagonals, and geometric patterns on the Lotto playslip. Skip-counting sequences starting at low to middling numbers with steps between one and nine are also popular. Players often choose winning numbers from TV shows like The Simpsons and Lost, famous mathematical sequences such as Fibonacci, and previous winning six-tuples. Additionally, players tend to avoid the edges of the payslip and cluster numbers within each six-tuple, similar to positioning ships in the boardgame Battleships.
Do Some Tickets Win More Often?
According to the research, the combination of six-tuples on a ticket can influence the probability of winning. If the paths traced by six-tuples on the payslip spread out with little overlap, like Tube lines on the outskirts of a London Underground map, they cover more numbers than a typical Lucky Dip. This slightly increases the ticket's chance of winning a prize. Conversely, heavily overlapping paths, such as those concentrated in the center of the map, can dramatically reduce the overall probability of winning. An extreme case is playing identical six-tuples on the same ticket. However, there are trade-offs: tickets designed to win more often than a Lucky Dip typically pay less when they win, while those designed to win less often can pay dramatically more.
When More Can Mean Less
The study found that New Zealand Lotto players think surprisingly alike. Some six-tuples are chosen by so many players that if they won the first-division prize, it would be split dozens or even hundreds of ways. For example, if any of the 40 most popular six-tuples wins the NZ$1 million first-division prize, each winner's share is estimated to be no more than about NZ$5,000. For the two most popular six-tuples—5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—the share could be less than NZ$1,000 each. The odd-number sequence 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 famously produced 40 first-division winners in New Zealand in 2018. However, it is now so popular (ranked 99th) that if it won today, it would be shared by twice as many people. The irony is that players choose popular six-tuples because of their appeal, yet that very appeal reduces their value.
Is a Lucky Dip the Best Bet?
Lucky Dips, being randomly generated, are far less likely to produce obvious patterns and popular six-tuples favored by human players, reducing the risk of excessive prize sharing. The analysis suggests that the average randomly-generated ticket has a higher expected payoff than the average self-selected ticket. However, players who want random numbers should let the computer choose them, as human brains are poor random number generators. The research identifies the 40 most popular six-tuples and includes a searchable spreadsheet listing the 5,000 most common combinations. Players can now check whether their lucky numbers appear on these lists. Although the data comes from New Zealand Lotto, most methods and results apply to other lotteries globally.
The Bottom Line
Lotto should be considered entertainment, not an investment. Choosing numbers with personal meaning is fine, but the most common choices increase the likelihood of sharing any prize won. Those seemingly lucky numbers often feel special to hundreds of other people. While some players spend years refining systems, there is no complex secret to beating Lotto. Two main takeaways are simple: self-selected number choices can influence the probability of a win with natural economic trade-offs, and players can reduce prize sharing risks by avoiding popular six-tuples—whether using a Lucky Dip or not. The draw may be random, but how players pick their numbers can still make a surprising difference to the odds of winning and what happens if they win.
