Fortune Games Research Lab publishes original, reproducible analysis. Every simulation is real seeded computation — seeds and methods are stated so results can be independently verified. Nothing here predicts future outcomes: randomness does not remember.
Fortune Games Research Lab
The Research Lab is where Fortune Games publishes original, reproducible analysis of gambling mathematics: what lotteries and casino games actually return, how often the famous outcomes really happen, and what the numbers look like when you run them properly. Every study is real computation — seeded simulations you can verify — and every method is published alongside its results.
How the Lab works
Each study follows the same rules. Simulations are Monte Carlo runs built in Python with the random seed stated, so any researcher can reproduce the exact results. Game rules come from the operators’ published structures, verified on the date of writing. Where prizes are pari-mutuel we say so and use published averages. And we publish what the data says, not what makes gambling look good: the honest headline of almost every study is that the house keeps its edge.
The simulation series
The core of the Lab is the 100-million-ticket series — full simulations of the UK’s draw games under their current rules: Lotto (including the June 2026 two-round format), Thunderball, Lotto HotPicks and Set For Life. Around them sit the question studies: Lucky Dip versus your own numbers, a lifetime of weekly Lotto, the new rules versus the old, and what happens if every UK adult buys a ticket for one draw.
The Casino Systems Lab
The casino wing tests betting systems against a million simulated sessions each: the Martingale, the Fibonacci, and the head-to-head of every major roulette strategy. The finding so far is beautifully consistent: every system converges on losing exactly 2.70% of turnover — the European wheel’s house edge — whatever the staking pattern. Systems change the shape of losing, never the amount.
Findings worth knowing
From the studies so far: the new Lotto returns 38.2p per £1 played across 100 million tickets, up from 35.6p under the old rules. One line in 4.88 wins something under the new format. In 10,000 simulated 50-year playing lifetimes, 14 players finished in profit. The median wait for a jackpot playing one line twice a week is over 200,000 years. And a £10 flat-bet roulette player’s most likely single-session outcome is a small win — which is exactly how the 2.70% stays hidden.
Reading the results honestly
Two principles govern every page here. First, simulations describe the long run, not your next ticket: 100 million trials reveal a game’s true shape precisely because no single player will ever experience it — your Saturday remains gloriously random. Second, past draws carry no memory: no pattern in our historical work predicts a future number, and any study that appears to show otherwise will say plainly that it doesn’t. We publish this work because the honest mathematics of gambling is genuinely interesting — stranger, funnier and more humbling than the myths — not because it offers an edge. There is no edge. That finding, replicated across every game and every system we’ve tested, is the Lab’s most reliable result, and the one we’d most like quoted.
Using our data
Journalists, researchers and students are welcome to cite any Lab study with a link to the source page. Charts may be reproduced with attribution to Fortune Games Research Lab. Bespoke runs — a scenario you’d like simulated, a claim you’d like tested — are considered on request via the site’s contact route. Corrections policy: if an error is found, the page is corrected and the change noted on it.
What’s next
In the pipeline: a blackjack basic-strategy lab benchmarked against published expected values, EuroMillions joining the 100-million-ticket series, and a jackpot-frequency explorer built on historical draw records. New studies are added most weeks — this hub links every one.
Related guides: the Lotto prize breakdown, what a good RTP percentage is and EuroMillions odds.