"It goes without saying the chance of winning the lottery is minuscule. But if you play the numbers, you should know that certain tactics commonly used to make picks reduce the likelihood of collecting the maximum payout." This is according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, based on the paper 'Number Preferences in Lotteries' by NIBS researcher Dennie van Dolder with co-authors Rogier J.D. Potter van Loon, Martijn J. Van den Assem and Tong V. Wang. 

In the paper, "We explore people’s preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that players spread their four or six numbers relatively evenly across the possible range, and that they chase (infrequent players) or avoid (frequent players) winning numbers from recent draws. Furthermore, players are attracted towards numbers in the center of the choice form and avoid the edges, and they tend to choose numbers that are readily available or likely to be “primed” in their short-term memory. Personally relevant numbers are favored, and combinations of numbers are being formed with an eye for symmetry and aesthetics. Altogether, our results suggest that number preferences in lotteries are especially driven by joy seeking, attention, and misunderstanding of randomness".  The paper is available here.