‘Luckiest area of Britain’ has more lottery wins per postcode than GP surgeries

Whether you cross your fingers, avoid walking under ladders, keep an eye out for four-leaf clovers or avoid cracks in the road, most of us could probably do with a little more luck. But new research has revealed that some parts of Britain have historically been luckier than others, especially when it comes to winning money.

Bingotastic has analysed the People’s Postcode lottery-winning postcodes and compared them against the number of postcodes in each area to reveal some of the luckiest places to live in Britain.

Blackpool is Britain’s luckiest place to live with the FY postcode area, which covers Blackpool, named the luckiest place in Britain. Blackpool has recorded 357 wins across 7,392 live postcodes, giving the area a win rate of 48.30 wins for every 1,000 postcodes.

There are just over two GP surgeries per every 1,000 live postcodes in the wider Blackpool area, as per the Blackpool JSNA Profile and Doogal. So, you are more likely to win the lottery than happen upon a doctor’s surgery in this area.

Rather than looking for the most wins in an area, which would naturally favour larger postcode areas, researchers calculated the number of wins for every 1000 live postcodes.

The results were then ranked to reveal the luckiest and unluckiest places in the UK. Unfortunately for Londoners, they seem to dominate the other end of the study with the lowest historic rate of winning postcodes.

The WC postcode, which covers Western Central London, was the least lucky area in Britain. In the area, there have been just 12 wins across 2,544 postcodes, giving the area a win rate of 4.72 per 1,000 postcodes.

East Central London wasn’t much luckier either, the EC postcode area has recorded 23 wins across 3,569 postcodes, which is equivalent to 6.44 wins per 1,000 postcodes.

West London comes third from the bottom in the research with 12.25 wins per 1,000 postcodes, followed by North West London with 15.43.

South West London, North London and East London also appear in the bottom 10, meaning six of the ten least lucky postcode areas are in London.

Kingston upon Thames, Llandrindod Wells and Watford complete the bottom of the table. It narrowly beat the Outer Hebrides, which recorded 47 wins across 980 postcodes, giving it a win rate of 47.96 wins per 1,000 postcodes, putting it second overall.

In third place is Sheffield, which recorded the most total wins anywhere in the top 10 with 1,547 wins across 34,494 live postcodes, which gives it a win rate of 44.85 wins per 1,000.

Cardiff takes fourth position with 1,048 wins across 23,402 postcodes, while Motherwell comes fifth with 442 wins across 9,871 postcodes.

Almost nothing separates the two, with Cardiff recording 44.782 wins per 1,000 postcodes compared with Motherwell’s 44.778. Preston, Stoke-on-Trent, Southend-on-Sea, Paisley and Inverness complete the top 10.

Andrew Palmer, founder of Bingotastic, said about the findings: “The most interesting part of this study wasn’t reading who came out on top or bottom, but reading the stories behind some of the wins. You have people winning money at some of the toughest moments in their lives. One woman found out that she had won £144,000 a day after major surgery, while another had received his late wife’s £30,000 prize just days after passing away.”

“Then you read what these people want to do with their money, and it is heartwarming. Rarely is it anything outrageous, but something like helping their children, retiring a little earlier, or taking the family on a holiday that they have been putting off for years.”