George DIckerson was perfectly happy to buy his tickets close to home before he won $1 million jackpot. Another player wasn’t.

I was standing in my local lottery shop with a bunch of winning tickets in my hand, waiting in the queue to cash them in.

And the guy ahead was making small talk with the shop owner about the multi-million jackpot which had just been won.

He was thinking of traveling up to the store which sold the winning tickets - to buy some. To catch some luck, as he put it.

I looked at him to see if he was joking.

But all he said was that it was too far. It was a 6-hour trip and he didn't have the time. 

It made me wonder what strange beliefs some people hold. 

And the thought of a "lucky shop" was one of the oddest.

Here's why I think that way...

FACT: It doesn't matter WHERE you buy your tickets.

The numbers have no geographical preference. They don't all swoop down on some small town and decide to nest there.

In fact, all that's happening is that a winning store gets a lot of ticket buyers. More players bring more action.

Maybe the store started on a lucky winning streak a while back, and then as the word got around more people visited and bought their tickets there.

According to a recent newspaper article, another of our country's luckiest lotto shop has the highest number of lotto winners anywhere... 32 first division winners and 158 Second Division winners.

But before you start emailing me asking how to buy some tickets from this place, let's read right to the end of the article where it says...

"The pharmacy (drug store) rates fifth highest in the country for volume of (lotto) sales..."

The real answer is that this lottery shop sells more tickets than most other stores in the country.

Their success is big queues of eager players. It is simply that a bigger volume of players increases the chances of a winning ticket at that store.

FACT: Lottery numbers have no memory.

Otherwise you'd be able to play through a series of number sequences and guarantee that in 70 years you'd strike the right combo.

It just doesn't work that way.

Lotto balls don't have a memory...
 
Every number ball combination that emerges from the draw barrel is there for the first time. It is never sitting there waiting for draw no. XXXX to come along.

So you can’t check your numbers for the next game by researching how they did in the past 100 draws.

And the proof? You'll see very few winning combinations anywhere which are exactly duplicated. The times they have are quite rare.

If you select a number combination, then look for that exact match in your game going back to when records began, it's very unlikely you'll find it more than once.

For example, it's unlikely you'll ever see the winning numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a draw. And if they did appear once, then it's unlikely the combination will reoccur.

So don't fall for the urban myth about lucky stores or numbers.

Stay close to home and buy wherever is convenient for YOU.