Picking Lottery Numbers is a Science

[lotterylogic]

Systems telling people how to pick lottery numbers that will win the lottery proliferate across the internet. They must be either ignorantly misguided or deliberately dishonest. Many of them depend upon analysing past numbers and coming up with numbers that are "likely" to come up.

Mathematicians and statisticians are adamant that past lottery numbers have no bearing on any draw in the future. This is highlighted by the numbers systems that are around. Some maintain that numbers that have come up more frequently in the past are somehow favoured and so more likely to come up in the future. Others argue that they are less likely to come up in the future. For any particular draw both theories are wrong. Any particular draw is totally random.

Another interesting myth is that if a set of numbers came up last week, then you should not choose them this week as the chances of a set of numbers coming up on two consecutive weeks is astronomical. Wrong. The chance of any set of numbers coming upin a 6 from 49 lottery is always 14 million to 1.