Well, in terms of winning, it doesn´t alter your probability one iota if you change your numbers. It´s a bit like a roulette wheel (which we try and explain until we are blue in the face). Just as a roulette wheel has no memory, so the lottery has no memory. If 6 numbers come up today, there is the same probability that those exact 6 numbers (as any other combination) will come up next week.

“Aha!” I hear you say. So why do you never see 2 consecutive results the same in the lottery? Well, that´s because there are so many combinations of numbers. You will eventually see this happen, (theoretically), but by then you´l be long gone (and probably the solar system would have blown up as well).

If there are less combinations (such as red/black) in roulette, you often see the same result on consecutive events.

The only thing we would say, is that whatever your method, be consistent. By that we mean, consistently change your numbers every week by playing Lucky Dip, or always keep the same numbers. Because if you switch around from one method to another, you are going to feel sick as a dog if your “numbers” come in. If you play Lucky Dip, on the other hand- you won´t have any “numbers”. And check behind the sofa for the winning ticket. Do you realise how much money is unclaimed every year in the lottery. Well, I am not even going to tell you, because it depresses me. if you buy a lottery ticket, for gawd´s sake CHECK IT!

That´s just made me think. I wonder how many people who play Lucky Dip win? I mean, what is the percentage of Lucky Dip players who win versus “favourite number” players…I think we might just ask The NAtional Lottery to clear up that one. Stay posted!

On another note, our poison is actually playing the big jackpot slots online rather than the lottery. OK the payouts are not as huge (but I´d be happy with 6 million Euros on Mega Moolah). but the odds are better. (Note I didn´t say the odds were amazing, I just said they were better!)

Thats £56,008,113.20 in numbers. They have been confirmed as Britain´s biggest ever lottery winners. And the winning tickets were shared with another lucky punter in Spain.

It is the 4th time in 3 months that a British winner has landed more than £25m in the EuroMillions draw. What is going on?

In November, Les Scadding, 53, and wife Samantha Peachey-Scadding, 38, from Caerleon, south Wales, won over £45m.

And £45m was won in the same day by a team of 7 IT workers at Hewlett Packard in Liverpool.

Back in January, 4 family members from Dorking in Surrey won £26m.

And Spain also seems to do well. The record EuroMillions win is £113m by a single Spanish ticket-holder in May last year. The other winning ticket was sold at the Administration Number 2 in Mojácar, Almería, in the P.Q. commercial centre. It’s understood the prize is shared by 3 Spaniards, each netting a cool €23 million.

Two of the 12 second category prizes were also won in Spain, in Madrid and Baracaldo, Vizcaya.

Euro Millions is played in the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Irish Republic, Portugal and Switzerland. So that should give yuo a clue as to the frequency of the wins. When you think of EuroMillions, you think the whole of Europe is involved, and that is not the case. So statistically speaking, both the UK and Spain have high populations meaning that these countries stand a better chance of scopping the big one. Plus, both countries have a culture of “having a punt” (Spain is famous for its huge Christmas lottery: El Gordo) andthe Brits just seem to bet on anything – particularly the bankers in The City (!)

So How Do I Win The Next EuroMillions Lottery?

Well, our best piece of advice to to wear your lucky pants. To win the Euromillions prize jackpot you need to predict all 5 main board numbers and both lucky star numbers. The odds are slightly less than 1 in 76 million. The Euro Millions draw offers 11 more prize categories apart from the jackpot, and the odds ofwinning one of these is better. The lowest prize has odds of 1 in 38.

The Euro Millions lottery numbers pulled on Friday made one British man or woman £26 million better off.  The enormous Euromillions jackpot will be shared between a lottery player in France and the UK player. It´s the 4th biggest scoop in UK lottery history.  The hot numbers were 11, 26, 29, 49, 50- the idendity of the lucky player is not yet known.

Last November saw a record win- this follows quickly on from that scoop. It is not known of the ticket holder is a syndicate or a person, or whether in fact the ticket is still lying hidden behind the sofa. But rumour has it that the winners has “come out” and is with the National Lottery secret agents as we post this.

Just like the previous big jackpot win, the numbers included “11″.

After 3 weeks without a winner there was £52.3 million in the pot during the draw. The lucky numbers in the draw were 11 – 26 – 29 – 49 – 50, lucky stars 4 and 7 and the Millionaire Raffle number was VFP866401.

Had the UK player been the only winner, the £52.3 million Euromillions Lottery jackpot would have made them the UK´s largest every lottery winner. But then £26,151,124.20 isn´t such a bad haul either.

Next Friday´s Euromillions Lottery will come in at an estimated £12 million.

These scams generally promise a big cash win and the lure  of a multi-millionaire lifestyle. We have been investigating this and it is quite scary how many of these letters, emails or telephone calls about a supposed lottery win are believed.

The problem is huge in the UK with estimates of 30% attributed to the number of people who have received this kind of communication. So don´t be hoodwinked! It is estimated that this scam fleeces people around the country to the tune of an eye watering £260 million a year, and almost 150 thousand UK citizens fall victim to the ruse. But the scam is rarely reported, due to people feeling embarrassed at having been so easily hood winked by the scam artists.

The average loss is about 2 thousand pounds, and the communication often seems like it has come from a genuine lotto operator such as the National Lottery or the Spanish “El Gordo” (literally the “Fat One”). Victims may receive motification about their win out of nowhere, informing them that they have jus scooped a life changing sum in a lottery or sweepstake. Then the scammers tend to ask for ‘administration fees’ to process the win, or for the victim to disclose details to confirm their identity in order to claim the win. The winnings are of course imaginary. The fees are real.

To help you identify these bogus claims, we have pulled together some key questions that you need to ask yourself if you ever get contacted with this kind of information. The overarching one is this: “Does this seem to good to be true?” If the answer is yes, the chances are that it is a scam, and you should investigate thoroughly.

Top Tips to avoid these Scams

1. Have you actually bought a ticket. If you haven´t, file the communication away in the bin.
2. Never send money in advance to claim a lottery win. Genuine lottery companies will NEVER ask you to pay fees or taxes before claiming what is rightfully yours.
3. Never give out your credit card or bank account details unless you fully trust the merchant.
4. Ask your friends and family their view on whether it is a scam. Two minds (or more) are better than one in these circumstances.
5. The National Lottery never informs winners how much they’ve won by email. Period.
6. Try the Consumer Direct site for a full run down.
7. Never dial a premium rate telephone number for information on your win
8. Be wary of letters suggesting you have a very short time in which to claim your prize or winnings. If you win the lottery and forget to claim, Camelot actively search for you over an extended period- they don´t require you to rush.
9. Don´t send money out of the country, especially to Holand, Spain or Canada.

Also, remember that if you reply to these kind of scams, (much as with spam emails), you will be marked down in their database as a real person and you´ll get more junk mail and emails landing on your doorstep and email inbox.

Lottery scams that are doing the rounds at the moment:

Watch out for:

1. The Canadian lottery Scam

Thousands of UK citizens have had unsolicited phone calls and sent money to scammers from Canada. Some victims have lost over £250,000 as they reply to more and more telephone calls paying for the costs that these companies are requesting in order to receive their prize. The wining ticket is a fantasy, and they never receive a cent in winnings, be that American or Canadian cents.

2. El Gordo lottery email scam

Loterias y Apuestas de Estado is the offical Spanish lottery company (the equivalent of Camelot in the UK which runs the National Lottery). They have has issued a warning about scammers communicating under the name El Gordo and forging bank forms to con people out of money illegaly.

Interactive lottery scam mailing

Fake junk mail and emails are being sent to UK citizens claiming they have scooped “el Gordo”: The Spanish lottery. In order to claim their ‘winnings’, victims are asked to provide bank account details and informed that 5-10 per cent of the winnings will be held back for costs. The ‘winners’ are contacted in dure time and asked for fees to release their winnings: of course they never see a Euro. Genuine “el Gordo” wins do not come with fees, taxes, or Interantional transfer costs.

Keep your wits about you!

The syndicate of IT workers who worked at a BT call centre in Wood Street, Liverpool collected their winnings of £45,570,835.50. Phew!

The winners were: John Walsh, 57, James Bennett, 28, Sean Connor, 32, Alex Parry, 19, Emma Cartwright, 23, Ceri Scullion, 35 and Donna Rhodes, 39. They each won £6 and a half cool millions. At 19, and 23 I hear you ask? Alex immediately became the UK´s most eligible bachelor and Emma´s phone hasn´t stopped ringing from would be suitors.

The Euro Millions champoins will now earn over £100 a day interest (the interest rates are low remember).

John Walsh was the ringleader and manager and said: “I’d been up watching a DVD on Saturday night and I then checked the numbers. I was gobsmacked.”

After a night with zero sleep, John nipped into work to double check the numbers on the actual ticket which he had left at work.

The team purchased their golden ticket at Earle Road Newsagents in Edge Hill which turned out to be one of two winning tickets on Friday’s massive £91m draw.

The other ticket was held by a couple from South Wales.

Suprise suprise, they have all handed in their notices, but they won´t be leaving BT in the lurch- although I should imagine some long lunches are in order.

The odds on winning the Euro Millions jackpot are one in 76,000,000 and it is played in 9 countries. It is a rare thing indeed for both winners to come from the same country. Good effort BT syndicate and invest it wisely!

A casino slots player in Florida: Bill Seebeck was certain he’d hit the jackpot. He claims the slot machine he was playing started to flash a winning jackpot of more than $166 million. Seebeck was jumping up and down screaming.

But the casino says there was a machine malfunction — and is refusing to pay up. How gutted would you be?

The slot was at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa, and Bill Seebeck was feeding the Bally Ultimate Party Spin Slot machine.

He was betting $4 a game and had fed about $80 into the machine when the lights started flashing and bells started ringing. The display flashed up: $166,666,666.65.

Casino managers immediately came over and sectioned off the machine. Seebeck was then told that the Ultimate Party Spin machine had malfunctioned. Seebeck says “I feel let down and ripped off.”

The casino asked him to sign something that stated that the machine had malfunctioned, and that he was not entitled to any winnings. Seebeck did not sign, of course, and is now investigating legal action.

The casino said that the slot machine’s top prize is only $99,000, so it was clearly a malfunction.

What´s the ruling in this case. Anyone know a legal precedent?

WHEN IS A JACKPOT NOT A JACKPOT?
“Machine malfunction voids all pays.” Most slot machines in casinos displays this disclaimer. If the Florida one did, then Bill is on a slippery slope, especially as the jackpot was $99,000 (this should also have been prominently displayed).

What it means is this: you can be sitting at a slot machine and hit the top jackpot–on the payline, with the maximum coins wagered–and win nothing. “The machine malfunctioned.”

The most famous slot malfunction happened in Arizona, at a Native American casino managed by Harrah’s. A woman claimed she won the $330,000 jackpot. Several hours later, the casino verified with an independent lab that there was a glitch in the computer chip, and she was denied the jackpot.

The woman went legal with her case to the tribal commission overseeing the casino, and the decision to not pay the jackpot was upheld. Harrah’s eventually compensated the woman for her jackpot, but only because of the PR impact her case was having on the company.

So the moral of the story is, you may not win these cases in court, but if you kick up a big enough stink about it and speak to as many newspapers and media channels as you can, you are likely to get a pay off of some sort, if you can prove that the machine actually started flashing, whirring and buzzing with your jackpot. Take a picture on your mobile phone!

The ticket has been left unclaimed for almost 2 weeks and was bought in the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey area in Scotland. It was the September 23 2009 lotto draw and the winning nos. were 23, 25, 28, 41, 46 and 47.

The ticket-holder is the only one to guess all 6 numbers correctly- which means that they should be 3,681,197 pounds richer once they claim their prize. They have until March 22 2010. It´ll go quickly, so get cracking!

There are quite a few Scots who haven´t claimed their winnings yet (or visitors to Scotland who just happened to buy their tickets in the country).

There´s a £119,777 unclaimed in the Dundee area (EuroMillions draw on August 28), a £101,849 Lotto ticket (Glasgow May 6),  and £69,000 waiting to be claimed in Dumfires & Galloway.

But its not just the Scots who lose their tickets down the back of the sofa. South of the Border there´s £286,508 that has still not been claimed from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (EuroMillions July 24).

Come on people! You are going to be gutted if you find these tickets after the deadline has passed.

The SuperEnalotto is run by a privatecompany called the Sisal SpA company. The minimum ticket buy is 1 euro – you need to correctly predict 6 numbers to have a chance of winning the life changing sum.

In 2009 alone, players has fluttered over 1.6 billion euros on the game, spending on average just under €3 each.

The latest jackpot is the largest in the history of the game which has been operating for over ten years. €100 million was paid out in October 2008.

This latest rollover is still some way short of the world record, which the U.S.A.’s Powerball jackpot of $365 million that was won in February 2006 by 8 players from Nebraska.

The European lotto win record jackpot is 126 million euros which was won in Spain in a Euro Millions game earlier this year in Spain.

The Super Ena lotto is played every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Players choose six numbers from 1 to 90. You can also pick a “SuperStar” – not a bonus ball but one that can win a  consolation prize. if you do not want to choose you own numbers you can pick up a play card which already has preselected numbers on it (a bit like a lucky dip).

There are 5 winning divisions in da Super Ena lotto gamio:

1 – Jackpot
Match 6 numbers
1 in 622,614,630

2 Match 5 numbers + SuperStar
1 in 103,769,105

3 Match 5 numbers
1 in 1,235,346

4 Match 4 numbers
1 in 11,907

5 Match 3 numbers
1 in 327

Famous wins in the past?-
In April 1998 a syndicate of a hundred players won around €3 million between them.
In August 2003 one person won nearly €66 million.
In  May 2005 10 Super Ena lotto players won €72 million.

For more information, head to Sisal (page is in Italian).

He bagged his first win in the morning and then got greedy and bought another ticket. It was a good job he did, as when he scatched off the surface of the ticket, there was a $ 1 million jackpot waiting for him.

“I was kind of in shock,” said Brunelle afterwards. “I’m still shaking.”

The probability of scooping $1 million from the Billion Dollar Bonanza scratch ticket game is 1 in 436,800, according to the MA State Lottery.

“I already picked $1,000, so I shouldn´t have gone back for more. I guess I’m greedy,” said Brunelle.

Brunelle is going to to use the spoils to open up new photography studios in the Fall River area.

The money will also go to help care for his mother, Linda Daggett, 49, of Brockton, who has cerebral palsy.

“I’m going to try to help her out, get her some new wheels, so she gets a bit more independence,” he said. “Without her, I wouldn’t be here.”

His luck run out shortly afterwards when he got a flat while driving home on Sunday.