Sum it up!

Today, we are going to look at the distribution of sums and how you can use this method to increase your chances of winning the lottery.

Sum is basically the result you get when you add up all six numbers of a lotto combination. So in 6/49 lottery, the lowest sum of 21 is made from 1;2;3;4;5;6 lottery combination, and the highest possible sum of 279 is attained from 44;45;46;47;48;49. The most frequent sum is 150 whereby 165,772 lotto combinations will add up to it! If you were to draw all sums and their frequencies on one chart, you would get a normal distribution bell curve, similar to one shown in red here. The blue lines within the bell curve are the actual distribution of sums of all UK lotto combinations drawn to date (click on the picture to zoom in).

Here are some interesting facts:

• 88% of all drawn lottery combinations had sums between 100 and 200
• The lowest ever sum so far was 59 (remember the lowest sum of all is 21)
• The highest sum so far was 245 (remember the highest sum of all is 279)
• Certain sums do better than expected (see examples on chart: sums 103,122,134)
• Certain sums do worse than expected (sums of 136, 165)

Here's how you can use this data to your advantage:

Bet on a draw to have a combination with a sum between 100 and 200. There will be times, when sum of numbers will be out of this range, but you should be right around 90% of time! Now by eliminating all combinations with sums below 100 or above 200, you will be eliminating a total of 1,758,552 combinations! That's a whopping 13‰ of total 13,983,816 lotto combinations available to you.

You could be a bit more prudent in your approach, and select combinations with sums above 59 and below 245, basically betting that the limits set so far by the lotto draws will not be broken. Again, you could get it wrong once in a while, but majority of time, this should work in your favour. By following this approach, you will be eliminating 35,603 combinations.

Now it can be a chore to check the sums of your combinations, especially if you play few combinations at a time and different combinations each time. Lottorino to the rescue, once again. Lottorino has Sums filter built it, whereby your combination is checked against the 100/200 and 59/245 rules. If your combination's sum breaks 100/200 rule but still stays within 59/245 range, the combination is downgraded but not significantly. It only gets a few points off. If, however, it breaks 59/245 rule, it is downgraded to 10‰ or below. Remember, as a rule of thumb, we advise on selecting a combination scoring 50‰ or more.

This is definitely one of the methods worth following in the selection process of your lucky lotto combinations. We hope it brings you luck, and if it does, let us know!