Investigation into Lotto rollovers unnecessary, says statistician

Vivienne Clarke

A statistician has said that calls for an investigation into why the National Lottery jackpot has not been won for some time are unfounded and that the number of rollovers made no difference to the odds of winning.

Dr Michael Cronin, who is head of statistics at the School of Mathematical Sciences at University College Cork, told Newstalk Breakfast that even though the jackpot had rolled over 47 times since the start of June, a phenomenon that had odds of 1,500 to one, it was not surprising to see a sequence of rollovers.

While this was a relatively rare event, he said and did not make any difference to any draw. Given that the Lottery was drawn twice a week, it was not surprising to get a sequence of rollovers as had occurred.

“Even though it has rolled over 47 times, it doesn't make any difference to tonight's draw. Your odds of winning on a single ticket tonight are still 10.7 million to one.

“They haven't increased, or they haven't decreased.”

There were other odds comparable to the Lotto rollover, added Dr Cronin such as the chances of rolling a six four times when throwing a dice, were 1,300 to one or that the chances of being born on February 29th were 1,400 to one.

Calls for an investigation into the National Lottery system were unnecessary, he said. “It's completely random, there's no evidence of anything untoward happening.”