News writer; Opinion columnist
Everyone has a different system for playing the lottery. Some people rely on lucky numbers and birthdays, while others will only buy their tickets on certain days or from specific stores. However, one of the more popular methods that players use to pick winning numbers is by using the Zodiac.
The Zodiac is a widely used system throughout the world, and people rely on it to determine their personality traits, their mood, and sometimes their lucky lottery numbers. But is it actually possible to increase your chances of winning by using your star sign?
To be clear, lotteries are games of random chance, and picking numbers based on your zodiac sign won't improve your chances of winning any more than using your birthdate will. However, it can still be fun to look at the correlation between the zodiac and lottery winners.
What is the Zodiac?
The Zodiac was created 2,500 years ago by ancient Babylonian astronomers. They divided the sky into twelve portions, with each portion associated with a specific constellation and the path of the sun across the sky. In its earliest form, this system was primarily used for scientific purposes such as astronomy and calendar-making.
In the 4th century BCE, the Greeks adopted the system following the conquests of Alexander the Great. They enhanced it by adding birthdates and planetary positions to create personality traits associated with each sign.
Finally, when the Romans conquered Greece, they popularized the Zodiac, and it spread throughout the empire, leading to its widespread use and enduring presence today.
Signs of winning
Do certain signs have a better chance of winning than others? According to a study published by the website Gamblizard, the answer is yes. Their research shows that Capricorns are the most likely to buy a winning lottery ticket.
The study involved using publicly available data to determine the birthdates and Zodiac signs of more than 3,000 lottery winners in the United Kingdom. The winners took home amounts ranging from $20,000 to several million dollars.
The top 3 winning signs were Capricorn (317 wins), Scorpio (278 wins), and Leo (272 wins). The study also reveals the signs with the fewest wins, which are Aquarius (211 wins), Gemini (195 wins), and Taurus (191 wins).
However, some people prefer quality over quantity, so the study also looked into which signs won the most money. The leaders of the pack for big cash wins start with Pisces ($14,570,420 total winnings), Leo ($12,444,500 total winnings), and Libra ($12,210,570 total winnings).
The study also showed which signs collectively took home the lowest amounts of money, starting with Sagittarius at third from last ($8,764,300 total winnings), followed by Aquarius ($7,805,500 total winnings) and Cancer ($7,105,600 total winnings) in last place.
Keep in mind, this study is likely revealing a coincidence rather than causation, so just because you're an Aquarius doesn't mean you should give up on ever scoring a big win.
Big winner
The Gamblizard study focused on winners in the UK, but a second study looked into which signs are most likely to win the big American games such as Mega Millions and Powerball. The website USBets looked specifically at US lottery winners who took home jackpots of $400 million or more.
According to their research, the key to winning a major lottery prize may be that you need to be born in the month of January because Capricorns once again led the pack by collecting 17% of major US lottery wins. Their writers suggest that the ambitious nature of Capricorns aligns with their winning nine-digit prizes.
The study's next two most frequent winners were Aries and Leo, who collected 12.77% and 10.64% of top prizes, respectively. These three signs truly dominate the big wins, collectively accounting for 40.3% of all $400 million-plus prizes, totaling 19 wins.
At the bottom of the pile are Taurus (6% of wins), Cancer (4% of wins), and Virgo (4% of wins). In total, these signs accounted for just seven total wins with a prize of $400 million or more.
Down under
As it turns out, how lucky your sign is might also depend on what country you're in. Australian lottery officials performed their own study of how frequently different Zodiac signs win top prizes, and their numbers revealed a new top dog for jackpot winners.
The study showed that for the years 2019 and 2020, Pisces were the most frequent lottery winners. Players with this water sign collected 14.3% of top prizes in the Aussie lottery, followed close behind by Gemini (9.5% of total wins) and Taurus (9.2% of total wins).
Data analysis revealed that the three signs that won the fewest top prizes were Scorpio (6.9% of total wins), Virgo (6.9% of total wins), and Cancer (5.3% of total wins).
Australian Lottery spokesperson Lauren Cooney says that it's up to players to determine if their Zodiac sign can impact their chances of winning:
Whether you believe in horoscopes or not, there's a chance the stars might align for you in the next few days. No matter what star sign you are, there's no doubt your horoscope would read positively if you're one of our division one winners from either of these draws.
Interestingly, while the top winning signs tend to change depending on which study you're looking at, Cancer consistently remains near the bottom of the pile, so those born from late June to late July might want to reconsider if they're going to purchase that Powerball ticket after all.
Lucky numbers
Anyone who has studied the Zodiac knows that each sign has its own lucky numbers associated with it. While the numbers aren't an official part of the Zodiac, over time, as different cultures have added to the system, numerology has become closely tied to star signs.
These numbers are determined by varying factors, including ruling planet numerology, which associates a number with each sign's ruling planet.
The table below shows some of the lucky numbers assigned to each sign.
Aries - 1, 9, 14, 29, 39, 45
Taurus - 2, 6, 9, 12, 24, 33
Gemini - 3, 5, 12, 18, 27, 32
Cancer - 2, 7, 11, 16, 25, 34
Leo - 1, 4, 10, 13, 19, 22
Virgo - 5, 14, 23, 32, 41, 50
Libra - 6, 15, 24, 33, 42, 51
Scorpio - 8, 11, 18, 22, 29, 32
Sagittarius - 3, 9, 12, 21, 33, 45
Capricorn - 4, 8, 13, 22, 26, 31
Aquarius - 4, 7, 11, 22, 29, 47
Pisces - 3, 7, 12, 16, 25, 30
Some people like to combine their Zodiac numbers with the most frequently drawn Powerball or Mega Millions numbers. The most common white Powerball numbers are 14, 20, 21, 23, and 61. The most commonly drawn numbers for Mega Millions are 31, 17, 4, 20, 10, and Mega Ball: 10.
Another study looked at the most drawn numbers across multiple US lotteries and identified 39, 28, 16, 32, and 15. The same study also found that you want to stay away from the 40s because the least selected numbers were 47, 43, 41, 44, and 46.
Chinese Zodiac
Just to complicate things, it's worth noting that there is more than one Zodiac, and depending on which country or culture you're a part of, your sign may be radically different than the system the ancient Babylonians came up with.
For example, the Chinese Zodiac is extraordinarily popular across Asia. Whereas the Western Zodiac is based on the stars, the Chinese version is a lunar system that was developed and codified 2,000 years ago during the reign of the Han dynasty.
In the Chinese system, your sign is determined by your birth year, as opposed to your birth month, and each symbol is associated with an animal, including Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.
According to popular folklore, the animals were chosen after the emperor announced a great race between all the animals of the world, and the top twelve finishers were rewarded by becoming zodiac signs.
As they did with the Western Zodiac, Australian lottery officials also studied which Chinese signs were the luckiest. They looked into the birth signs of all 435 top prize winners from 2020 and discovered that the Rat was the luckiest sign that year.
Players who held the Rat sign took home 43 total jackpots. The next two big winners were Goat and Dragon sign holders, with 39 and 38 wins, respectively. These three signs collectively won 27.5% of all jackpots.
The study also revealed the unluckiest signs. Snake and Dog signs came in dead last with just 30 wins apiece, followed by Rooster and Tiger, which each accounted for 31 wins. In total, the bottom three signs collected only 20% of jackpots.
Should you use your own Zodiac sign and lucky numbers to play the lottery? We say, Why not? While it may not increase your chances of winning, it can still be a fun way to learn a few things about your personality, or at least what some ancient Babylonian scholars probably thought was your personality.
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