Number 7 ‘is most popular lottery number’ – November 21st 2011

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Many lottery fans may have something else in common besides their love of lotto draws – a penchant for including the number seven in the sequences they choose to play in their favourite games.

Seven is known to be a lucky number in many cultures and it seems a great many lotto fans are superstitious enough to use this digit regularly – perhaps to boost their luck if they have a jackpot win in mind.

Dr John Haigh – an emeritus reader of mathematics and statistics at the University of Sussex and author of a book entitled Taking Chances: Winning with Probability – believes this prime number is a real favourite amongst lottery enthusiasts.

He revealed that Canadian lotteries – such as Canada Lotto 649 – publish the frequencies that individual digits are chosen.

The number seven was the most favoured, followed by 11, 3, 9, 5, 27, 31, 8 and 17.

Dr Haigh said low odd numbers are the most popular, while round numbers are relatively unpopular – perhaps because people do not see them as “sufficiently random”.

When it comes to lesser-chosen digits, the expert revealed 40 as being the least frequently picked lotto number, followed by 39, 48, 41, 20, 38 and 46.

Dr Haigh claims clusters of lottery numbers could be a better way of picking a sequence to play in a draw, because this is more random than spreading the digits out – which could reduce the likelihood of sharing a prize if they win with those numbers.