After playing the exact same lottery numbers for 40 years, three brothers over in Victoria, Australia, bagged themselves $511,000 – nearly £400,000 – in last Saturday’s draw.

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The brothers said they used the same numbers weekly over the course of the last four decades. So let’s say they spent a total of $10 twice a week for the last 2,080 weeks, the brothers spent just over $40,000  on tickets overall for a $500,000+ payout. Not bad!

One of the bros, who have yet to go public, told the Daily Star:

We play every week. We’ve been playing these same numbers for 40 years.

I don’t remember why we chose these numbers exactly.

All I know was 40 years ago we each wrote down numbers and selected a ticket to play.

We’ve been playing ever since.

The numbers which landed them their winnings were 28, 7, 36, 1, 42, and 22, with the supplementary numbers 14 and 11. One of the bros spent 10 minutes double checking the ticket before letting the other two know:

I checked the ticket a number of times before checking the website a number of times.

I just wanted to make sure it was confirmed and re-confirmed before I told them.

Once I realised it was true, I had the honour and pleasure of telling my brothers we were winners.

It was a great feeling to be able to call them and let them know.

This is just one of those stories you hear that makes you wonder whether playing the lottery every week might actually be worth it. If you can spare a couple quid or more every weekend, it stands to reason that eventually, if you keep playing the same numbers for all of eternity, your combination will eventually come up. All you have to do is stay alive long enough (40 years in this this family’s case) to win.

What’s interesting is that these brothers say they chose their numbers completely randomly, which isn’t what people usually do, especially if they’re playing the same numbers every week. Surely you’ve got your birthday there, or your date of birth, or any number that’s special to you for whatever reason. Well, turns out it was a better tactic in this case.

What I’m wondering now is whether it feels better to win £400,000 on the lottery having spent £20,000+ on tickets as opposed to winning it with one lucky, random ticket. With the latter you’d truly feel like the luckiest person alive, but with the former it must be a huge relief knowing you didn’t spend all that money in vain over the last 40 years.

I doubt it matters to these three brothers either way now that they’re £400,000 richer. That’s just over £133,000 each! Enjoy it fellas.

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