National Lottery Anomaly

RobbieT

Well I've never seen this before. In Saturday nights draw there was only one player who matched 5 balls and the Bonus Ball. Five people shared the Jackpot-

Match 6 Balls - 5 winners each recieve £968,272.

Match 5 plus Bonus- 1winner recieves £1,489,649.

So 5 Balls + Bonus paid more than getting the Jackpot. Very odd.

BIG_ROB

Agreed, if I was one of the £968.272 winners, I'd ask for me pound back! Ffs

; )

Algarveaddick

Talked about the possibility of this happening donkeys years ago. Had to happen one day.

North Lower Neil

I'd quite like either, to be fair.

Rothko

Happened once when there was about 50 Jackpot winners who got about £100k, and the 5 and bonus ball winners got 400k.

if 1-2-3-4-5-6 comes out, 10,000 people would share the jackpot according to Camelot

RobbieT

Rothko said:

If 1-2-3-4-5-6 comes out, 10,000 people would share the jackpot according to Camelot

Numbers 1- 6 are just as likely to come out in a draw as 11, 15, 21, 25, 31, 45 for example. But you and I know, however mathmatically likely it is, it will simply NEVER happen. If you then apply this to your own 6 numbers you've used for the last 17 years or so then you'll realise that you'll never win the jackpot.

BIG_ROB

They do say that if your numbers are 32 and above, you have more chance of not having to share the money IF your numbers come in, as most people use birthdates when selecting their numbers.

MrOneLung

they deduct all the 10 pound winners first, then each tier including jackpot, 5 plus bonus ball etc has a set percentage of the remaining funds allocated to it that does not change.

smudge7946

There is talk of raising the price to £2 on saturday and wednesday, making the minimum prize for 3 number £20 and introducing a raffle (Like in the Euro millions.)

RobbieT

smudge7946 said:

There is talk of raising the price to £2 on saturday and wednesday, making the minimum prize for 3 number £20 and introducing a raffle (Like in the Euro millions.)

Well I can't see any point in that. Doubling the price would stop a lot of punters.

Algarveaddick

It would not Robbie, it is a very clever idea. Most people stick to the same numbers every week, they would never stop doing the lottery because it is human nature to think your numbers will come up the week you stop doing it, so you carry on. Fortunately I worked that one out from week one and always chose random numbers.

Riviera

In Wednesday's Lotto draw if you matched 5 balls you won just £15! For 3 balls it is a fixed £25.

Riviera

Algarveaddick said:

It would not Robbie, it is a very clever idea. Most people stick to the same numbers every week, they would never stop doing the lottery because it is human nature to think your numbers will come up the week you stop doing it, so you carry on. Fortunately I worked that one out from week one and always chose random numbers.

Looks like RobbieT, whoever he was, was right Algarve, since it went to £2 a ticket the number of players has dropped massively.

iainment

Surely that's a mistake

Riviera

iainment said:

Surely that's a mistake

No, the reason is that there was a unusually high number of 3 ball winners, this is the only prize that is a guaranteed amount and the other prizes are divided pro-rata from what is left. There was also a lot more 5 ball winners than usual, 4,000 odd. It is a pool after all and so the more winners the less the payout.

guinnessaddick

Riviera said:

iainment said:

Surely that's a mistake

No, the reason is that there was a unusually high number of 3 ball winners, this is the only prize that is a guaranteed amount and the other prizes are divided pro-rata from what is left. There was also a lot more 5 ball winners than usual, 4,000 odd. It is a pool after all and so the more winners the less the payout.

IA

That's unique {...}

Surely if you matched 5 numbers, then you matched 4 numbers and would take the £51

man_at_milletts

Very weird. If people believe that they have more chance of winning because there are now more numbers to choose from, serves them right for not paying attention in their maths lessons at school.

Bedsaddick

I'd be gutted if I got 5 numbers and only £15.
I got 5 numbers up about 4 years ago and won £1700. Even then I was disappointed with the payout!

i_b_b_o_r_g

guinnessaddick said:

Riviera said:

iainment said:

Surely that's a mistake

No, the reason is that there was a unusually high number of 3 ball winners, this is the only prize that is a guaranteed amount and the other prizes are divided pro-rata from what is left. There was also a lot more 5 ball winners than usual, 4,000 odd. It is a pool after all and so the more winners the less the payout.

Cap the jackpot at 10 mill and divide the rest down at whatever percentage, then roll over the balance

paulbaconsarnie

guinnessaddick said:

Riviera said:

iainment said:

Surely that's a mistake

No, the reason is that there was a unusually high number of 3 ball winners, this is the only prize that is a guaranteed amount and the other prizes are divided pro-rata from what is left. There was also a lot more 5 ball winners than usual, 4,000 odd. It is a pool after all and so the more winners the less the payout.

How can they claim that the lucky dips given out for matching 2 numbers comes out of the prize fund?

Algarveaddick

Riviera said:

Algarveaddick said:

It would not Robbie, it is a very clever idea. Most people stick to the same numbers every week, they would never stop doing the lottery because it is human nature to think your numbers will come up the week you stop doing it, so you carry on. Fortunately I worked that one out from week one and always chose random numbers.

Looks like RobbieT, whoever he was, was right Algarve, since it went to £2 a ticket the number of players has dropped massively.

Can't win 'em all (see what I did there). It would be interesting to see how many fewer still there are since the number of balls increased. The missus, (well the in-laws on her behalf) who always had the same numbers from week one, knocked it on the head at that point.

rina

Riviera said:

iainment said:

Surely that's a mistake

No, the reason is that there was a unusually high number of 3 ball winners, this is the only prize that is a guaranteed amount and the other prizes are divided pro-rata from what is left. There was also a lot more 5 ball winners than usual, 4,000 odd. It is a pool after all and so the more winners the less the payout.

no, if you look at the breakdown there was a fairly normal number of 3 ball winners but around 100x the normal 5 ball winners

presumably due the the fact that thousands of people picked 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 with 5 of those 6 coming up

this demonstrates why you need to have fairly random numbers if you are going to play

had 28 come out instead of 41 we'd have seen the jackpot split between around 4,000 people

paulbaconsarnie

The odds of matching 5 balls is 144,415/1.
Camelot are paying 13/2.

Charltonparklane

They've killed it.

Should be 49 Numbers on a Saturday, no Wednesday Draw, No Thunderball, Jackpot Capped and anything over it gets filtered down equally for other prize funds.

If they Insist on the £50k (or whatever it is) Raffle crap then have a 100 winners of £500