Does it matter where a lottery ticket is purchased? Are some areas luckier than others? Common sense would say no, but the results of a new study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) suggest that some areas really do seem hog an unusually large share of good luck.
The study was confined to locations within the state of California and statisticians at UCLA examined three years of data to reveal the luckiest and least lucky counties.
Rick Shoenberg, chairman of the statistics department at UCLA, didn’t expect to find much variance from area to area so he was shocked at what the figures revealed.
"Each player should have just as much chance of winning the lotto as any other player," Shoenberg said.
But an analysis of data supplied by the California State Lottery showed the county of Santa Clara had more winners per ticket, during the three year period examined, than any other county in California.
The statistics reveal Orange County is the second luckiest place to purchase lottery tickets and, although Los Angeles may be the City of Angels, lottery players in the city are not particularly blessed because the statistics show LA players have a no more than average chance of cashing in on a big win.
When it comes to the California SuperLotto Plus, good luck seems to be in short supply right across the state. The jackpot has not been won since January 1, 2014, so the drawing on Saturday, May 24, 2014, has an estimated jackpot of $70 million.
