Shared Jackpots
I have spoken before about the importance of avoiding commonly picked numbers when playing the lottery, but the Lotto draw of Wednesday 25 June, 2008, illustrated precisely why you should heed that advice.
The winning numbers on 25 June were 11, 12, 22, 23, 24 and 36. The jackpot, which is rarely as high for a midweek draw as it is for a Saturday, was worth £2,355,880. And what happened? Well, take a look at the numbers and see if you can guess. That’s right, five out of the six numbers could have been anyone’s birthdays, and the jackpot ended up being split between several winners.
How many winners, exactly? Ten. Yes, ten. Which meant that the “once in a lifetime” experience of winning a National Lottery only paid each one the sum of £235,588.
Okay, so I know that everyone who won £235,588 will be very grateful for their windfall, but really I still think it’s a shame that the jackpot was shared by so many. I mean, these people beat lottery odds of almost 1 in 14 million, and they each walked away with less than a quarter of a million. Like I said, it was a shame.
Maybe we should be thankful that there was one number higher than 31 in the mix, otherwise we might have had even more jackpot winners sharing the jackpot pie, but even so, ten winners was a fairly poor outcome when you consider that winning a lottery jackpot is supposed to set you up for life.
My advice? If you pick your own numbers, make sure you include at least two in the range 32 to 49. This won’t increase your chances of winning, but it might decrease your chances of having to share any jackpot you win with a small army of also-wons should your “once in a lifetime” numbers come up.
Article Last Updated: 15/07/2008 14:46:25
