27 Is The UK’s Luckiest Number For Lotto
The 27-ball is the luckiest number to play in UK and Irish lotteries, according to new research.
The Paddy Power Lotteries study analysed over 3,000 draws across the UK Lotto, Thunderball, EuroMillions and the Irish Lotto, finding that the 27-ball has the highest appearance rate of any number, even when accounting for the differently sized ball pools for each game.
Considering the average proportion of selections that each ball appears in (taking into account the total amount of draws and number pools on offer), 27 gets picked in an average of 13.3% of draws. That’s over 1.5 times more often than the unluckiest ball (57), which appears in just 8.6% of possible instances.
Everyone has their own personal lucky numbers that make lottery and other actives like gambling that much more fun and exciting. Sometimes they also help with the decision making when you don’t need to ponder which numbers to choose for example at casino’s online bingo games.
The lotteries studied contained a mixture of five and six main balls to play, and the research found that the most frequently drawn balls across the four games are as follows:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 27 | 13.3% |
| 2 | 54 | 12.9% |
| 3 | 52 | 12.7% |
| 4 | 58 | 12.7% |
| 5 | 42 | 12.7% |
| 6 | 29 | 12.7% |
And, with some lotteries (such as the Thunderball and EuroMillions) requiring an additional one or two bonus numbers to be selected from a smaller pool, the most commonly drawn bonus ball numbers for those are:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 2 | 28.1% |
| 2 | 3 | 27.6% |
The Paddy Power research also provides the most common selections for numbers within each individual lottery.
UK Lotto
Top six numbers from 1-59:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 54 | 12.9% |
| 2 | 52 | 12.7% |
| 3 | 58 | 12.7% |
| 4 | 8 | 12.5% |
| 5 | 42 | 12.3% |
| 6 | 55 | 11.9% |
Thunderball
Top five numbers from 1-39, plus one Thunderball from 1-14:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 30 | 14.2% |
| 2 | 29 | 14.1% |
| 3 | 4 | 13.9% |
| 4 | 8 | 13.9% |
| 5 | 31 | 13.9% |
| Bonus ball | 3 | 8.4% |
EuroMillions
Top five numbers from 1-50, plus two Lucky Stars from 1-12:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 20 | 13.5% |
| 2 | 23 | 13.5% |
| 3 | 27 | 12.7% |
| 4 | 17 | 12.4% |
| 5 | 39 | 12.2% |
| Bonus ball 1 | 2 | 21.2% |
| Bonus ball 2 | 3 | 19.2% |
Irish Lotto
Top six numbers from 1-47:
| Rank | Ball number | Average appearance rate |
| 1 | 27 | 16.9% |
| 2 | 16 | 15.5% |
| 3 | 29 | 15.5% |
| 4 | 42 | 15.5% |
| 5 | 7 | 15.3% |
| 6 | 10 | 15.1% |
