Did you know that Catchalotto syndicate allows for no duplication, increasing the chances of lottery win?

The odds of winning the UK National lottery is 1 in 13,983,816, meaning that there are 13,983,816 combinations that can be made from numbers 1 to 49.

Until recently, Camelot, the UK National lottery operator, used to release its sales figures. Although those figures are no longer published, it is possible to reverse calculate the lotto sales as we know how the lottery prize tiers work (that is the topic for another day, perhaps). Nowadays, the sales normally average to £17,000,000 per Wednesday lottery draw and £30,000,000 for Saturday lottery draw, which begs the question why there are sometimes no jackpot winners as obviously with that amount of tickets (e.g. 17,000,000 tickets on a Wednesday draw), we should be covering all possible lotto combinations. For Saturday draw we should be covering all possible lottery combinations at least twice!!!

But that's the thing, we do not. Some combinations are favoured by many people, whilst some combinations are not played at all. For instance, combinations like 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 7;14;21;28;35;42 (all numbers divisible by 7) or combinations with all numbers less than 31 (people's birth dates) or 4;8;15;16;23;42 ("Lost" numbers) are played by many, whilst some combinations are totally ignored.

Now then, if the whole nation played the lottery via Catchalotto syndicate, there'd always be a jackpot winner. This is because before a combination is accepted into a syndicate, we look whether such combination has already been covered, and if so, a different combination will be required. A reselection of just one number is usually sufficient. It's all about playing lottery efficiently - why bet on the same horse twice especially if there are 13,983,816 to choose from!

Obviously it is a bit silly for a syndicate to play 13,983,816 combinations if average jackpot payout stands at £2m. This is where Lottorino and a bit of luck are needed!