So how did you do during May? If you have any tickets lying around that you haven't checked yet, now is the time to pull them out and see if you have won any prizes!
It's quite common for people to buy tickets and then completely forget they have got them. While some people do watch the live lottery shows many others don't, and if you don't buy a paper every day and get into the habit of checking your numbers against the results, it's easy for days or even weeks to go by without even seeing whether or not you have actually won anything!
So why not read through the rest of this article – this month and every month – to see whether or not you got lucky this time around? No matter whether you buy one ticket a month or several each and every week, you have still got a chance of winning for the draw that your ticket is valid for.
It's also interesting to see which numbers were drawn each time, since while the draw is completely random it can be fascinating to see whether you can spot any patterns which might influence the numbers you choose next time around. It might not work but it's more exciting than sticking a pin in the entry slip, or choosing numbers based on birthdays!
So let's take a look and see what happened during May, to see whether you really did get lucky without even realising it!
The results for the Lotto draw in May 2008
Machine | Date | Balls | Numbers | Jackpot | Jackpot Winner |
Topaz | Sat 03 May | 7 | 2,15,17,32,36,42 | £4.81m | Six |
Topaz | Wed 07 May | 8 | 9,10,12,16,30,31 | £2.12m | One |
Topaz | Sat 10 May | 6 | 4,14,18,24,32,40 | £4.43m | Three |
Sapphire | Wed 14 May | 7 | 3,4,29,34,41,42 | £2.79m | None |
Topaz | Sat 17 May | 5 | 3,11,12,41,46,47 | £7.96m | Two |
Topaz | Wed 21 May | 6 | 2,23,38,41,47,49 | £2.77m | One |
Sapphire | Sat 24 May | 7 | 3,6,10,26,30,38 | £4.04m | Three |
Sapphire | Wed 28 May | 8 | 10,25,28,36,45,48 | £2.64m | One |
Topaz | Sat 31 May | 5 | 15,20,22,34,37,39 | £5.21m | Two |
The bonus ball is not listed in the results above; we are looking only at the six main balls to be drawn, which are the ones that have to be matched in order to claim a share of the jackpot.
The numbers, as always, made for interesting reading last month. Last month we saw that number 4 came out three times, but it still featured twice during May. This month it was the turn of numbers 3 and 10 to come out three times each, and on one occasion they both popped out in the same draw. The number 41 also popped up on three occasions.
The numbers 2, 4, 47 and 42 all made it out of the machine on two occasions, but as with every month there was a big list of numbers which weren't seen at all. During May the numbers to make this list were – 1, 5, 7, 8, 13, 19, 21, 27, 33, 35, 43 and 44.
We can see from this that there were a lot of low numbers that didn't feature during the May draws – four single digit numbers out of a total of nine. Although we can contrast this with the fact that seven out of the nine draws had at least one single digit number appearing within the results!
At the other end of the scale there were two consecutive draws which saw three numbers in the forties appearing in the results – with none at all appearing the following week. Could this be a sign of a pattern?
There was only one draw in May which didn't produce a jackpot winner, resulting in a £7.96 million pound jackpot for the next draw, which was shared by two lucky winners.
Other winners
May was a good month for those lucky winners that managed to match five of the main numbers plus the bonus ball.
On Saturday 3rd May, 18 people won £82,379 each.
On Wednesday 7th May, 15 winners netted £43,555 each.
On Saturday 10th May, 13 people bagged an incredible £104,879 each.
On Wednesday 14th May, 6 people did even better with a whopping £143,284 each.
On Saturday 17th May, 4 people walked away with a huge sum of £397,462 each.
On Wednesday 21st May, just 2 people picked the right numbers to bag an impressive £427,403 each.
On Saturday 24th May, 21 winners got £59,228 each.
On Wednesday 28th May, 4 winners netted £203,150 each.
On Saturday 31st May, 14 people walked away with £114,631 each.
So there was a huge gap between the lowest payout in May for five balls plus the bonus, from £43,555 to £427,403. That's a big gap, but the average for the month was just over £175,000 – a few grand more than we saw for the average last month.
You wouldn't forgive anyone for wanting to have been a ‘five plus bonus' winner on the 21st rather than on the 7th though!
Thunderball Results
Those trend setters among you should sit up and take notice, because the Thunderball numbers in May were very similar to April's results in that they were all quite low…
Let's take a look shall we?
Date | Thunderball Number |
Sat 03 May | 8 |
Wed 07 May | 3 |
Sat 10 May | 13 |
Wed 14 May | 13 |
Sat 17 May | 13 |
Wed 21 May | 1 |
Sat 24 May | 3 |
Wed 28 May | 10 |
Sat 31 May | 11 |
This continues the relatively low trend we saw last month – and yes you did read that right… the number 13 was a very lucky number for Thunderball ticket holders last month!
The number 8 appeared twice last month, leaving us wondering whether we would see it again for a while, but it popped up in the very first draw in May, before disappearing again – but for how long?
Number 3 also popped up twice, so maybe that will become our new lucky number.
EuroMillions
The biggest EuroMillions jackpot for May was a whopping £44,376,310 on the 16th, while the 30th May saw a small jackpot by comparison of just £11,785,550. Mind you, a lot of people would still have been enormously happy with that!
What's more, just one single person scooped that whopper of a jackpot on the 16th, and presumably they must still be picking themselves up off the floor!
Here are the jackpots for the May draws:
Date | Jackpot |
Fri 02 May | £21.33m |
Fri 09 May | £32.23m |
Fri 16 May | £44.37m |
Fri 23 May | £11.95m |
Fri 30 May | £11.78m |
The number 9 appeared in three draws throughout May, also appearing once as a Lucky Star number. Numbers in the forties also appeared several times, with three out of the five main numbers in the Sat 09 May draw being in the forties.
Lotto Hotpicks
There were just two jackpot winners in Lotto Hotpicks for the whole of May, and they both occurred in the 28 May draw. The jackpot in the Lotto Hotpicks draw is £130,000, but this amount goes to every jackpot winner.
Numbers in the forties appeared in six out of the nine draws, while there was at least one single digit number in seven of the nine draws. The number 41 came out three weeks running, so perhaps you should steer clear of it in future weeks as it may be up for a rest?
The number 10 also appeared three times during May, although it only appeared two weeks running and then had a break before popping up again later on in the month.
So perhaps we are due for a run of jackpot winners on Lotto Hotpicks? Only time will tell.
Dream Number
The jackpot in the Dream Number draw is £500,000 – although no one got to see any of that cash during May. Better luck next month maybe?
The idea of this draw is to match as many of the numbers that come out as possible – in the exact order that they are drawn. The more you match, the more you win. Perhaps not surprisingly this is turning out to be quite tricky!
The prize for matching the first number only is £2, so at least you have a chance of winning something just by matching that first one. After that it gets a bit harder!
Daily Play
The jackpot in the Daily Play draw is £30,000, but only three people were lucky enough to scoop the top prize in the draw during May. That's quite low considering this game is played every day except for Sunday's. That amounts to 3 jackpot winners out of a total of 27 games.
While the £30,000 jackpot would be nice to get for anyone, maybe the bigger pickings of the main Lotto draw would be better to aim at overall.
Overall results
The main Lotto draw certainly seems to offer you the best chances of scooping a nice jackpot, if May's results are anything to go by. Nineteen people became jackpot winners in this main draw in May, which is far more than all the others put together.
There's no doubt that the main draw is also the most popular and it has been running the longest as well. After this the pull of the EuroMillions draw, with its huge jackpots, must surely be second favourite – although you have to compete against a lot of other Europeans to be in with a chance of winning it big here.
But the main thing is that you try your luck and don't lose that ticket – whichever draw it's for. You never know when your numbers might finally come up!
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