Are You More Likely to Win Lotto on a Wednesday?
Last Updated: Tuesday 2nd July 2019, 10:29
Tonight’s Lotto jackpot stands at £5.9 million and players across the UK will be hoping to continue a run that has seen the last five top prize winners all pick up their awards in the midweek draw. The last jackpot win on a Saturday came on 16th April 2016, when ladder builder John Bowman from Forfar in Angus banked £10.3 million, but since then no one has been able to match all six main numbers at the weekend.
In the meantime, seven Wednesday Lotto players have shared an extraordinary £47.4 million in jackpots across five winning draws, including the £21 million scooped by a single ticket holder on Wednesday 15th June. Is this just a coincidence or is it easier to win the top prize in the midweek Lotto draw?
The reality is that each Lotto line has the same odds of winning the jackpot as any other and that is entirely unaffected by how many other people are playing, how large the jackpot is or what day it is. When you play Lotto, you are taking on the number matrix, attempting to match six numbers from a choice of 59; you are not competing against other players.
Even though an individual’s chances remain the same, it should be more likely that there would be a jackpot winner at the weekend because more people play on Saturday, meaning more of the possible combinations of numbers could be entered into the draw. However, this is not borne out by the recent Lotto success stories, which show Wednesday’s draw dominating in terms of big wins.
Although the day of the week doesn’t affect your chances of winning in the main Lotto draw, it can have a bearing on how successful you are in Lotto Millionaire Raffle. The supplementary game works differently in that everyone who plays Lotto is automatically entered into the raffle and, from those entrants, one ticket is picked to win £1 million, with another 20 selected to win £20,000 in a standard draw. This means you stand a much better chance of claiming a prize when fewer players take part, for example on a Wednesday and when the jackpot in the main game is at its base level.
If you would like your chance to become the latest Wednesday jackpot winner, you can buy Lotto tickets online or from authorised retailers across the UK until 7:30pm. Don’t forget to check your numbers using the Lottery Results page and make sure to check the Lotto Millionaire Raffle code too.