Standing at the counter, many people wonder whether to pick their own numbers or go with a Lucky Dip. Do those quick entries ever land the top prize?
There are plenty of stories and myths, which makes it hard to know what is actually true.
Here, we look at what has happened in UK draws and what you can realistically expect from Lucky Dip wins.
How Many Jackpot Wins Have Been Attributed To Lucky Dip Entries?
Lucky Dip is a National Lottery feature that generates a set of numbers for you at random. It is a simple, hassle-free way to take part without choosing numbers yourself.
Looking across official updates and long-running news reports, a significant share of Lotto jackpot winners have claimed with Lucky Dip lines. In some years, around half of top prizes have been reported as coming from entries created this way. The National Lottery has also highlighted that several headline-making jackpots since Lucky Dip was introduced in 1994 were won with computer-selected numbers.
This pattern is not limited to one game. EuroMillions and Thunderball have also produced winners with automatically generated entries. You will often see these cases mentioned in draw summaries and follow-up features.
Curious what that looks like in real life? A few high-profile examples help bring the picture into focus.
Notable Examples Of Jackpot Winners Who Used A Lucky Dip
There are several memorable cases where a Lucky Dip ticket has matched all the winning numbers in the UK.
A well-known example is the North Lanarkshire couple who won £161 million on EuroMillions in 2011 with a computer-selected line. Their win remains one of the largest in the country. In 2016, a family from Monmouth in Wales took home a £61 million EuroMillions jackpot after checking a Lucky Dip ticket alongside their usual shop. More recently, a player from County Durham won £10 million on Lotto in 2022 with numbers generated automatically.
Stories like these appear regularly in national and local media. They show that major prizes have been won with Lucky Dip across different games and over many years.
Which naturally raises the key question that follows. Does choosing a Lucky Dip change your chances?
Does A Lucky Dip Change Your Odds Of Winning The Jackpot?
In short, no. The odds of winning the jackpot are set by each game’s rules and do not change based on how your numbers are selected. For Lotto, you need to match six numbers from 1 to 59. A manually chosen line and a Lucky Dip line each have exactly the same chance of matching those six numbers.
What Lucky Dip does is remove human patterns like birthdays or favourite numbers. That can help avoid crowded number ranges, but it does not increase the probability of winning. Every valid line in the draw is entered on equal terms, as set out in the official game rules.
If the odds are the same either way, it helps to know how those Lucky Dip numbers are produced behind the scenes.
How A Lucky Dip Is Generated
Random Number Generation Behind Lucky Dips
When you select a Lucky Dip for any National Lottery game, your numbers are produced by a computer system rather than chosen by a person. The system uses a Random Number Generator, or RNG, which creates number sequences without following a pattern.
For Lotto, EuroMillions and Thunderball, the terminal in the shop or the online platform calls the RNG to generate your line. It does not use personal data or past draw results. Each request produces a fresh, independent set.
These systems are tested by independent laboratories and operate under regulatory oversight in the UK. That oversight is there to ensure the process works as intended and that Lucky Dip entries are created fairly.
With that in mind, it is easy to confirm whether your own ticket was generated this way.
How To Check If Your Ticket Was A Lucky Dip?
On paper tickets, the words Lucky Dip are usually printed next to any automatically generated line. If you bought the ticket in a shop, the terminal receipt will also show Lucky Dip beside the relevant entries, which makes it simple to tell them apart from numbers you selected yourself.
Online, you can view your purchased lines in your National Lottery account. Any Lucky Dip entries are clearly labelled on the ticket view, so you can see at a glance which lines were generated for you and which were chosen manually.
**The information provided in this blog is intended for educational purposes and should not be construed as betting advice or a guarantee of success. Always gamble responsibly.