Your Money: Happy birthday numbers to you

Five of the six winning numbers in last week's lottery, plus the bonus ball, were under 18, which played into the hands of the many punters who choose family birthdays as the basis of their selections. Not surprisingly, there were five outright winners and another 40 had five numbers and the bonus ball.

The winning numbers were all unremarkable, neither rare nor frequent winners. For the second week running however the number with the longest losing streak came up, with 1 following 21 from the previous week.

It leaves 46 and 20, 8, 10, 36, 39 and 47 as the longest losing sequences, none of them having won this year, while 13, 20, 34 and 39 are all-round losers with few wins and a long run of failure to make up.