Living in lucky Lotto country

AAP

Poll

What would you do if you won Lotto?

This poll ended on 30 April 2011.

Buy everything I've ever wanted

18%

Spend it on family

24%

Bank it

14%

Invest it

24%

Give to charity

11%

Hide it in my mattress

6%

This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate.

NORTH COAST residents are riding a lucky streak, with a string of lottery wins valued at more than $2.2 million since the start of the year.

On Saturday a Lotto ticket, bought at the Goonellabah Newsagency, won first prize in the Lotto draw, valued at $820,000. That prize is still unclaimed, and a Goonellabah resident this week won $5000 in the $2 Lottery.

Among the other big wins:

• On August 1, three North Coast residents each won more than $11,000 in the Saturday Lotto.

• On July 23, a Casino resident won $58,135 playing Powerball.

• In June, a Ballina resident won $33,468 in Oz Lotto, while a Lismore resident won $44,657 in the game.

The gods began smiling on the North Coast in January when a Lismore resident and a Ballina resident won $64,723 each in Powerball.

The Northern Rivers has a population of about 270,000 people and since January, 26 people have won substantial lottery prizes.

NSW Lotteries spokesman John Vineburg said our region was defying the odds.

“There are more than five million people buying lottery tickets from 1600 outlets across the State and there definitely seems to be a cluster of wins on the North Coast,” Mr Vineburg said.

“I don't know if it is the North Coast's positive energy or the ley lines drawing wins your way. More logically I tend to think that it's just a statistical blip that we see clusters of wins in certain areas occasionally.”

North Coast clairvoyants were not surprised by the rush of luck, although they warned it would not last.

Clairvoyant Yvonne Hyde said August, the eighth month of the year, was particularly lucky for anyone with an eight in their birthday.

However, she warned that on the whole 2009 was not a financially lucky time and people should be cautious with their money.

Byron Bay astrologer Patsy Bennett said she believed a place could be touched by good luck, but it would only be transitory - when the stars were well aligned above the area.

She said spiritually the Northern Rivers was better known as a place of power.

“Mount Warning is always a very powerful place, because something called ley lines converge there. Ley lines are energy grids in the ground,” she said.

Astrologer Varij said specialists studied the luck of certain places and the discipline was called astro-cartography.

But he believed luck was strongest when a fortunate person was in sync with a lucky place.

“It works best when it's a double. You can be in a lucky place, but if particular individuals have a chart that harmonises with the place, then they are more fortunate,” he said.

Janey Barker, who also reads horoscopes, said she did not believe that Lismore was 'a lucky place', but said people who were naturally intuitive were drawn there.

“The people here are more tuned in and they gravitate here because this area has very strong feeling and high energy coming off the land,” she said.

A recent study by the University of NSW found the odds of winning a game of Oz Lotto are about one in 45 million. The study found that statistically you are more likely to die in the 24 hours leading up to the draw than win first division Lotto.

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