I certainly didn't know this - won't be using the lucky dip option any more!
Taken from the actual Euromillions web-site:
"The easiest way to make sure that you are playing random lottery numbers is to use our free random lottery number generator. The advantage of using this over playing lucky dips is that each set of lottery numbers is generated purely at random giving each player a unique set of numbers, unlike lucky dips which may be allocated to groups of players reducing your chances of winning a solo jackpot."
This may well explain why 133 people shared the jackpot 8 weeks after the National lottery started - I have never seen any explanation for this bizarre result.(14th Jan 1995)
To be honest, I feel a bit cheated although not as cheated as I'd feel if I'd shared the jackpot with loads of other players. Why do they do this when they have the facility of producing proper random numbers....why not link that into the lucky dip process?
Did I read it somewhere where a guy did his own lottery numbers and did a lucky dip as well, the machine gave him the exact same numbers in the lucky numbers as the numbers he had already done.So does a lucky dip mean a print out of a previous customers numbers.
Bednobs - I used to work in IT Security and could bore you for hours about 'random' numbers :-). Re the 'groups of players', I don't believe they are referring to syndicates in this instance. That's how I read it anyway....
That freak result was because the numbers aligned down the page. 133 people had just ticked one number on each line in nearly a vertical line. The layout of the number was changed to to horizontal to prevent that from happening again.
So is the difference being the random number generator selects a set of 6 numbers that nobody else has and a lucky dip just randomly selects a set of 6 numbers which may or may not have been selected before?
However, at the end of the day, whatever six numbers you have, no matter how they have been selected, you have exactly the same chance of winning.
Just googled that and it is not from the official National Lottery website. I think it is just BS to make you play through their website and not buy a ticket in a shop.