Lottery record jackpot: A mathematician's guide to winning tonight's £57.8 million

'Don’t choose numbers all in a row like one to six, don’t choose last week’s winning numbers.'

The jackpot has reached £50m after being rolled over 13 times

A mathematics professor has provided a guide to choosing your numbers for tonight's record-breaking Lotto draw.

Dr John Haigh, emeritus reader in mathematics at Sussex University, advises lottery participants to avoid choosing last week's winning numbers or numbers "all in a row like one to six".

Dr Haigh admitted that whatever you do, the odds of winning this National Lottery draw will remain 45 million to one. His advice is aimed to help you avoid sharing the jackpot with anyone else.

He told the Mirror: "I believe every one of the 45 million combinations that are possible are equally likely. There is no reason for any one of those come up more often than any other, so ­whatever you do, you have one chance in 45 million of hitting the jackpot winning numbers.

“But what you want to do is if you do hit them you want to share the prize with as few other people as possible.

“So what you would like to be able to do is to work out what combinations other people are choosing and choose different."

Dr Haigh said many people choose lucky numbers which tend to be low numbers meaning the other end of the range is under-represented.

According to the mathematician, you should choose numbers (from one to 59) that add up to 200 giving you the best possible range of numbers.

He added:"If you make sure your choices add up to at least 200 that still gives you several million combinations but it is suitably biases it towards the higher numbers that many other people tend to avoid.

“Don’t choose numbers all in a row like one to six, don’t choose last week’s winning numbers.

"You must choose them at random but you want to bias your choices so they are at the farther end."