In the money

Want to know how to guarantee a win on the UK Lottery?

My previous article on this subject described the results of some research published in the New Scientist under the catchy title: "Mathematicians find 27 tickets that guarantee UK National Lottery win."

You can read the article and my thoughts on how the system might work in practice here:

How to win a lottery

The original New Scientist article is linked below. If you want to find out what the 27 golden numbers are, you will either have to subscribe to New Scientist or obtain a copy of the article from a lending library or

online academic library. UK libraries (including in my home town of Beckenham) will generally oblige if you ask them but not sure how it works in other countries. You can't in any case play UK National Lottery games unless you are a UK resident.

This article does not advocate gambling. If you are going to enter any national lottery draw, do not spend more than you can afford to lose. In the long run gamblers always lose. You can play the game suggested in this article without spending any money, just by trying out the numbers and checking the results. Don't be a loser.

Don't get too excited yet, though. The numbers offered up in the article might guarantee you a win each time you play, but there is no guarantee that you will come out with a profit. What's more, at £2 per number-line entry, it will cost £54 to enter those 27 ticket lines in a single draw. The supposed system doesn't even guarantee a cash prize to those bold enough to try it. All it guarantees is that you win "something" and that something might be a bonus ticket to enter into the following draw.

So much for mathematicians and their magic. Ever the investigative journalist, however, I decided to delve deeper into the theory and practice of guaranteeing a win on the lottery. After considerable investment (and less than considerable return) I discovered some very interesting and potentially profitable things about the New Scientist lotto number system.

Does it work? Absolutely!

As a consequence of my further study I have found ways to improve on the New Scientist's scientists' formula that massively increase the winning potential. Step aside mathematical geniuses, I have the secret formula to trump anything you have so far offered. Does it work? Absolutely. I have checked and tested my theories (and the New Scientist's) using all of the Lotto results data for 2022 and 2023 so far. Read on for details.

How do I do it?

In order to explain how my system works (let's call it the Midas Method) you first need to know something about the UK Lotto game from the National Lottery. More details here

Launched in 1994 the National Lottery Lotto is a random mechanical draw of 6 out of 59 numbered balls, plus one bonus ball. It is played twice weekly on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. The National Lottery also offers other draw games and 'instant wins'. Around 53% of ticket sales are allocated to a prize fund which is divided up and shared by prize winners at each level of prize. The jackpot consists of 9.79% of sales, the balance being allocated to the remaining prizes. To win the jackpot, a player must match all six numbers to those drawn. Other prizes are £1,000,000 for a match of five numbers plus the bonus ball, £1,750 for a five ball match, £140 for four balls, £30 for three balls. Those with two balls win a bonus 'lucky dip' ticket for a subsequent draw.

With the New Scientist numbers, you are only guaranteed to win a lucky dip ticket.

With a lucky dip ticket, the numbers are pre-selected at random and automatically entered into the next draw. Is this guarantee for real? Does it work? Well, when I ran through a series of historical number, every draw resulted in at least one lucky dip ticket win, with some resulting in cash prizes. This includes all of the draws I risked my hard-earned cash on.

In the Lotto draw on Wed Aug 26th 2023, a single player won £5,106,856 with all six numbers matched: Draw history

Having done my own research, I have adapted the New Scientist approach, considerably improving the chances of winning, almost guaranteeing a cash prize every entry, and drastically improving the chances of winning one of the bigger cash prizes, including the jackpot. Using this approach also produces a hidden benefit to players that I hadn't figured when I first set out to test it. How do I know these things? Simply by running my newly adapted numbers and approach, the Midas Method, through the draw history results, available to all and going back to day 1 of Lotto in 1994.

The critical factor in the Midas Method is the 'rollover' approach taken by the National Lottery when they need to dispose of surplus cash accumulated when there are several draws in a row that fail to produce a jackpot winner. How does this work?

When the Lotto draw fails to produce a jackpot winner, the money is rolled over to the next draw, adding to the jackpot prize fund. If this happens four draws in succession, the following draw is designated a roll down. This means that whatever the prize fund, it must be won or is distributed among the other prize winners. The £30 win for three numbers might become £60 or £70, often more. Crucially, that guaranteed minimum prize win of a bonus ticket becomes a £5 cash win. So you might win £5, £10, or even £20 just with two-number winning combinations. If you win only one three-number cash prize you will likely be in profit for that draw. Given the real increase in winnings potential for a roll down, why enter any of the regular draws?

Even with these cash benefits, it is still not clear from the mathematical evidence whether we would end up in profit with this system. In order to test how well it might or might not work, I decided to run my specially selected Midas numbers through the results tables. Here is what I found.

In 2022 there were 11 roll down games through the year. In every one of these game draws, the Midas numbers produced at least one two-number win and every one of these wins paid out £5. The number of two-number wins ranged from zero to 4, meaning wins of between zero and £20. In the one draw when there was no two-number win, there was a single three-number win of £67. This is more than twice the regular £30 for three numbers and of course verified that in each of these draws, there was at least one win. Only, given it was a roll down draw, every one of the 11 draws produced a cash win.

For these 11 game draws, the three-number prizes ranged from £56 to £100. Using the Midas Method numbers (not the New Scientist numbers) produced a total of 27 two-number wins, yielding £135. In addition there was a total number of 5 three-number wins, yielding a total of £330. There were no wins of four or more numbers. The grand total winnings therefore amounted to £465. The cost of entering these 11 draws with 27 lines each at £2 per line was £594. This means that, if I had used the Midas Method to enter every draw down draw in 2022, I would have made a loss of £129. A similar approach in 2023 would have made a smaller loss of £58 to date.

2023, however, is not yet over and, as chance has it, tomorrow, Wednesday December 13 is a Lotto roll down and I have entered the 27 Midas numbers, at a cost of £54. Will I win? Well, I am pretty certain of winning at least £5 and would hope to win more than one two-number combination.

The November 22 roll down had a roll down jackpot prize that wasn't won, resulting in the £12.8 million jackpot 'rolling down' to the other prize levels. In addition to each two-number combination winning £5 + free bonus ticket, three winning numbers produced £106, four produced £300 and five numbers won £11,477 instead of the usual £1,750. There was also a five number plus bonus ball win of £1,061,282 for each of four winners. All of this money must be won and I shall know where I stand in the winners list at around 20:30 UTC tomorrow, December 13, 2023.

The Midas number combination pretty much guarantees a win of between £5 and £12.8 million

Watch this space for an update!

And there is more. The Midas Method also guarantees a drastically improved chance of winning one or more of the higher cash prizes over the long term. How does it do it? I will cover this aspect of the Method in a later article. But only if there is sufficient interest demonstrated through likes and comments. If there is enough love shared, I may even reveal the Midas Method numbers, so that you can either track success yourself or, if you are bold enough and have enough spare cash (and are over 18, living in the UK) enter the numbers yourself.

As I say, watch this space! - oh and wish me luck...

And just to repeat, I do not advocate gambling. I sometimes enter draws like this and other competitions for fun, and on the odd chance I might win. The National Lottery donates a significant proportion of the take to charities and good causes so some of the considerable sums of money I have spent (lost) over the years has benefitted others.

If you do enter this or any other draw game. Good luck!

Thanks for reading