Six Pink Balls

Six pink balls. That might sound like the punch line to a particularly rude joke, but it is in fact an observation about the UK Lottery results for Saturday 11 October, 2008. All six winning numbers were in the twenties: 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, and 28, and that meant that, for the first time in British lottery history, they were all the same colour.

Whilst having six balls of the same colour is all very well from a colour coordination perspective, it doesn’t make things particularly good for lottery players. That’s because six tightly grouped numbers make it more likely that several people will have played them. This is especially the case when all six numbers are below 31, as I’ve said before in posts like Shared Jackpots.

As if to prove a point, Saturday’s jackpot fund of £7,853,164 was won by no less than eleven lottery players. This meant that eleven people had managed to overcome odds of 1 in 13,983,816 and yet each of them ended up with just £713,924 to show for it.

It goes without saying that all eleven players will be happy to have won £713,924, especially with Christmas looming on the horizon, but are they as happy as they thought they might be before the draw took place?

If you had said to any one of them before the draw “You’re going to match all six numbers,” they would probably have started dreaming about millionaire mansions, sports cars and world cruises. But when the jackpot has to be shared with so many other people the reality of winning is very diifferent. Sure, the winners can buy a new house and a new car, and take a couple of holidays, but they will need to manage their money very carefully if they want to make it last a lifetime.

All UK lottery players should decide right now whether they want to win as much as possible or be content with simply matching all six numbers. If we want to win as much as we can we need to try and avoid picking numbers that are likely to be picked by others. Whilst we can’t totall avoid the chance of having the same numbers as others, the odds are much reduced by playing a Lucky Dip ticket rather than relying on birthdays or lines that include several numbers of the same colour.

Article Last Updated: 14/10/2008 10:26:37

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