Mathematician reveals how to win the lottery

Winning the lottery seems like it comes down to sheer luck, but a Brazilian mathematician claims he's come up with a way to predict the correct numbers.

A new study by Renato Gianella argues that not all combinations of numbers have the same probability of occurring in a lottery draw — so it's theoretically possible to choose numbers that have a higher chance of earning a jackpot.

The mathematician has tested his method with more than 20 lottery draws around the world, in order to prove there are groups of numbers that show a higher probability of winning, reports Eurekalert.

Gianella used the results of his study to build Lotorainbow, a website which shows which lottery numbers have a higher chance of success.

The tool doesn't reveal the precise numbers that will win the lottery, but it does reveal which combinations of numbers are more likely to win.

The site claims that understanding the "behaviour pattern" of lotteries will help people "play more rationally".

Gianella's findings are based on the Law of Large Numbers, a principle of probability theory which describes how, when an event is repeated many times, the results of that event will come closer to an "expected value" the more times it's repeated.

"Lottery should no longer be seeing as a form of a gambling but a true representation of the probabilistic theory and the Law of Large Numbers," Gianella said.