Do lottery superstitions hold any real power? How does math explain when winning the lottery coincides with superstitions? Why do strange numbers occur?
You heard the news about someone winning the lottery using the law of attraction. And you heard some strange things like a combination getting drawn twice in a row.
Don’t be surprised. Coincidences do occur in the lottery, and it’s not impossible.
In this article, we will explore a more realistic and even mathematical explanation for the supposed improbabilities of our world.
If you’re ready, let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
Lottery Superstitions, Unusual Events, and the Improbability Principle
Rare and unexpected events may occur at one point or another, no matter how seemingly ridiculous. Someone hit the jackpot not because a chicken walked across a calculator or a gold coin answered someone’s prayers.
If you want to win the lottery, there are more effective strategies than relying on lottery superstitions or betting on a strange sequence of numbers.
Allow me to elaborate.
You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket, which automatically gives you the mathematical probability of coming out on top.
The image above indicates the true nature of randomness in playing the lottery. The combination 1-2-3-4, 2-4-6-8, or 5-10-15-20 must occur at any given point. Remember, the Improbability Principle makes strange events seem unexpected. Unusual combinations can happen when opportunities are abundant enough. In this case, a 4/20 game must have 45,000 draws for all combinations to occur.
If a 4/20 game draw occurs once a week, you need approximately 865 years before a 1-2-3-4 combination may occur.
It goes to say that even those straight combinations are bound to occur, no matter how improbable. The same principle applies to why a coincidence of winning and betting with lottery superstitions may occur in a lottery draw.
| STRANGE COMBINATIONS | DRAW DATE | LOTTERY |
| 15 – 16 – 17 – 19 – 50 | July 05, 2013 | Euro Jackpot |
| 9 – 31 – 32 – 33 – 34 | May 02, 2014 | Euro Jackpot |
| 24 – 32 – 33 – 34 – 38 – 39 | April 02, 2014 | Irish Lottery |
| 30 – 31 – 32 – 35 – 37 – 40 | April 04, 2015 | Irish Lottery |
| 2 – 3 – 5 – 7 – 9 – 23 | December 19, 2009 | Australian Lottery |
| 4 – 21 – 22 – 24 – 25 – 26 | January 06, 2007 | Australian Lottery |
| 11 – 13 – 14 – 18 – 19 – 37 | May 09, 1992 | Australian Lottery |
| 11 – 12 – 16 – 17 – 18 – 23 | April 06, 1999 | Australian Lottery |
| 11 – 12 – 15 – 16 – 54 | February 20, 2016 | Powerball |
| 7 – 21 – 22 – 24 – 28 | December 23, 2011 | Euro Millions |
| 7 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 19 | August 18, 2015 | Euro Millions |
| 1 – 40 – 42 – 43 – 47 | October 09, 2015 | Euro Millions |
According to the law of large numbers, these strange numbers are bound to occur. Whether we like it or not.
Just because unusual events occur in the lottery doesn’t mean you must pick your numbers the same way.
You have to be a smart lotto player. And Lotterycodex is here to help you make an intelligent decision when you play.
Generated using Lotterycodex Calculator for the 5/69 Game
As a lotto player, you should play to win the jackpot. One way to do this is to pick combinations closer to the composition that dominates the lottery draws.
The Law of Attraction: The Queen of All Lottery Superstitions
In 2004, Cynthia Stafford decided to try an alternate method of acquiring the $112 million jackpot. She claims to have spent time meditating and using visualization to envision winning the lottery.
Stafford focused on the imaginative experience of winning and, three years later, took home precisely the amount she had desired.
In an extraordinary feat, Stafford appeared to use the law of attraction (or LOA) to win the lottery.
News of Stafford’s accomplishment caught the attention of lottery enthusiasts, authors, and thousands of players who believe in superstitions.
Everyone wanted to win, but most felt like the magic numbers were barely out of reach. Many who heard the recent story think that the law of attraction provides a new approach to an old game. Or does it?
Does the law of attraction work?
Much to the dismay of lottery players worldwide, the law of attraction is an ineffective way to win.
According to an online community devoted to guiding visitors toward transformation through the power of the law of attraction, manifesting a jackpot win is not impossible.1
They argue that if you haven’t yet won using this method, you either don’t want it badly enough, want it too severely, or unknowingly believe it will negatively impact your life.
For LOA practitioners, the law of attraction is intended to focus on energy and open minds to the possibilities of what life can provide. It is a method of perceiving the world abundantly.
While this visualization method might impact those wishing to enrich their lives, it is not a proven way of manipulating mathematical probabilities.
But why do people believe in all these superstitious strategies?
Availability bias is what convinces us based on accessible information that took place just recently.2
It is hearing about someone winning the lottery through the law of attraction and, therefore, believing it is possible. Between this and confirmation bias 3 which encourages us to seek verification of our beliefs, it’s no wonder that many lottery superstions are surfacing and sticking.
The higher the number of people who use all these superstitions in the lottery, the more likely one will win, no matter how absurd the belief.
Cynthia Stafford’s experience was a rare and improbable event.
That said, coincidences do happen.
David J. Hand, an emeritus professor of mathematics and senior research investigator at Imperial College London, explains that even events with minuscule probability can undoubtedly occur.
He described this unusual event as the Improbability Principle.
Professor Hand writes:
A set of mathematical laws that I call the Improbability Principle tells us that we should not be surprised by coincidences. In fact, we should expect coincidences to happen. One of the key strands of the principle is the law of truly large numbers. This law says that given enough opportunities, we should expect a specified event to happen, no matter how unlikely it may be at each opportunity.4
For example, if only 23 people were in a room, the probability of two sharing the same birthday is higher than fifty percent.
Therefore, it is not unusual that even bizarre, unlikely events occur in the lottery.
In the lottery, many drawings occur regularly worldwide, with ample opportunities for rare events and lottery superstitions to occur coincidentally.
Similarly, with so many supporters of the law of attraction dreaming about the lottery, it should not be surprising that one would eventually win.
That doesn’t mean the law of attraction works. It’s the large number of opportunities that allow something to happen.
In his article, Professor Hand cites several examples of unusual events that occurred in the lottery:
- On September 6, 2009, the Bulgarian lottery randomly selected the winning numbers and then, four days later, randomly selected the same set of numbers.
- On October 16, 2010, the same combination of numbers appeared that had previously been drawn a few weeks earlier.
- In 2007, The North Carolina Cash 5 lottery produced the same winning numbers on July 9th and 11th.
- In 1980, Maureen Wilcox bought winning numbers for the Massachusetts State and Rhode Island Lottery. Unfortunately, however, the combinations were on the incorrect tickets. The combination for the Massachusetts Lottery matched the winning numbers for the Rhode Island Lottery and vice versa.
Many conclude that the lottery is fixed or pre-determined when these incidences occur.
In reality, unusual events and coincidences are possible.
The Improbability Principle proves that given truly abundant opportunities, seemingly impossible events can still happen.
Stafford isn’t the only case. Due to confirmation and availability bias, people worldwide have used unique methods of taking home the jackpot. Let’s look at some of the most unexpected wins in history.
Using Dreams to Predict Winning Numbers
In 2014, Terry Vigus had a vivid dream and scooped nearly £1.2m.5
Does dream work? Not at all.
Millions of people around the world play the lottery daily. There are abundant opportunities for a lottery win to coincide with lottery superstitions. What happened to Vigus doesn’t mean the same thing will work for you.
Dreams are personal and often serve as a reflection of your deepest desires. Although dreams develop in an unconscious state, they can represent many of your conscious aspirations. When someone is intently focused on fulfilling a goal during their waking hours, their minds are likely to continue that thread of consciousness while sleeping.
There are stories about people having a vivid dream that they picked the winning numbers in the lottery. However, it is important to set aside biases and recognize that only a small number of those dreams become a reality.
Psychic Readings and Tarot Cards
In 2007, Judy Mayer from Winnipeg, Canada, won $6.8 million using the numbers given by a fortune teller.6 After a tarot card reading, Katerina had written all but one of the winning numbers on the back of a business card. Mayer took it home and played those numbers for over a year before spontaneously changing the last digit from 45 to 46. That small change was what handed her the win.
Following Mayer’s win, fortune teller Katerina received many reading requests. Availability bias set in, and the masses began to believe in psychic readings and superstitions as a strategy for winning the lottery.
They fail to realize that the improbability principle will allow another tarot card combination to win. However, it will not be because a fortune teller predicted the numbers, but rather because with truly large opportunities, anything is possible.
The number of people now believing the method to be tried and true only adds to the likelihood that a psychic consultant may be credited with another lottery win. The more predictions fortune tellers make, the more likely the next winner will have spoken with one.
Surprisingly, the credit will be given to the method rather than the underlying probability.
Feng Shui
In 2010, a man from Syndey, Australia, allegedly won a jackpot after applying elements of Feng Shui into his life.7
According to the ancient Chinese practice, gold coins represent wealth and money. When the man glued a gold coin to his doorstep, he created a variable version of the tradition. Other households keep gold coins at their doorsteps for various reasons, but this man believed it would win him the $1.2 million jackpot.
False causality occurs when unrelated actions are perceived as responsible for the outcome. For example, the superstition of placing a gold coin on the doorstep did not affect the outcome of winning the lottery.
With millions of billions of people playing the lottery, it’s unsurprising to see a story of someone winning the lottery using Feng Shui.
The truth is that feng Shui has nothing to do with winning. The Improbability Principle takes effect.
China is not one of the wealthiest countries in the world because they practice Feng Shui. Instead, they work hard and accumulate wealth by pursuing aspirational careers and maintaining a business mentality.
With hundreds upon thousands of people all over the world practicing Feng Shui, it was bound to happen that one claimed the jackpot. However, for every winner, hundreds of thousands of disappointed lottery players use Feng Shui as a strategy.
Pets
Animals may seem clairvoyant, but most often, it is when they’re searching for food or anxious to get outside. Using your pet to pick numbers is just another superstition in the lottery.
If you assume your pet knows the winning lottery numbers because they can sense when it’s dinnertime, you may be slightly disappointed in their performance. It didn’t stop Billy Gibbons from letting his pet chicken, Kiev, walk across his calculator to randomly select the numbers that ultimately won him the jackpot.8
Most importantly, please don’t fall for the illusion that pets offer up winning combinations for their owners. Just because someone wins doesn’t mean the strategy has validity. Like any ordinary lottery player, such an incident became part of a winning statistic.
Ghosts
One of the most scary superstitions in the lottery is listening to spirits. One man even credits his late wife for their sudden financial abundance. 9
Believing that those who have passed remain in communications and aspire to continue being a part of your life brings peace of mind to many who have experienced loss. However, crediting them with your lottery winnings is a perfect example of false causality with confirmation and availability bias.
Considering the statistics, more people are likely to credit a tarot card reader with their jackpot than a ghost, as psychics are more easily accessible than speaking with spirits. Still, these instances are entirely coincidental and provide no relation to the real reason that anyone wins the lottery: math.
The Dark Side of Lottery Superstitions
Believing in the law of attraction and using visualization to achieve goals can positively impact your life.
These strategies to win the lottery can guide you down a darker path. Believing that a psychic will answer your financial troubles or that your pet holds the numbers in their paws can lead to trouble.
People become so invested in superstitions and obsessed with dismantling the lottery system that it can quickly become all-consuming.
A Chinese man once spent ten years living under a bridge attempting to develop an algorithm to predict lottery drawings.10 He researched for over a decade to crack the code to win. Not even his family knew where he had gone until reporters contacted them.
In 2018, another man mistakenly thought his calculations had won him the ticket. After spending all his savings and overdrawing his account to celebrate with his family, he discovered he was off by one number. The money he already spent would never be returned. After threatening to take his own life, his girlfriend called the police, who ultimately intervened.
Unlock Lottery Success with Proven Math-Based and Data-Driven Insights
Access Lotterycodex now!The Lotterycodex Principle: Avoid Lottery Superstitions
Here at Lotterycodex, we teach you the principle of a mathematical strategy. And this mathematical approach can be summarized with one simple line—make an intelligent choice.
That means we guide you on how not to be mathematically wrong most of the time. And betting on lottery superstitions is not a mathematically sound strategy.
This concept of being mathematically right is possible because odds and probability are two different concepts and are not mathematically equivalent.
Although all combinations may have equal probability, combinations can be grouped into combinatorial groups with varying success-to-failure ratios.
If you want to learn this nifty method in depth, I suggest you read my free guide, The Winning Lottery Formula Using Math.
LLN is not the same as the law of truly large numbers (LTLN), which we use to explain unusual events. We use LLN to reach an accurate conclusion in a probability study.
Of course, if you hate counting numbers and want a tool to calculate everything, you should try a Lotterycodex calculator. Indeed, mathematics can be fascinating when we apply it to the lottery. Once you understand the concepts, you will never gamble on lottery superstitions again.
Remember, the lottery is truly random. However, the lottery’s randomness often gives you a better advantage over other players.
A lottery game is not an investment. Keep playing for fun.
Explore more:
References
- Why Hasn’t Anyone Used The Law Of Attraction To Win The Lottery? [↩]
- What Is the Availability Heuristic? [↩]
- Confirmation Bias And the Power of Disconfirming Evidence [↩]
- The Improbability Principle [↩]
- Loughton man’s ‘vivid lottery dream’ comes true [↩]
- Psychic doles out a fortune — again [↩]
- Belief in feng shui ‘triggers jackpot win’ [↩]
- A guide to take home the jackpot [↩]
- £26m lotto winners say mum’s ghost is behind their jackpot scoop [↩]
- Chinese man lives under bridge for 10 years to crack lottery code [↩]