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Thornton Heath supposedly has the luckiest residents in the UK, at least when it comes to the lottery, new research has revealed.

According to research compiled by Lotto betting operator Lottoland, those named Barry or Claire, over the age of 60 and living in Thornton Heath are the luckiest people in the UK.

Over the past year Lottoland have looked at data from more than 300,000 people who bet on the lottery, and have managed to determine the luckiest and unluckiest people and places across the UK.

Research found that the luckiest names were Barry, Steve, Michael, Mike and Adam, while the unluckiest names were Rebecca, Edward, Ashley, Dominic and Garry.

The new data was compiled by using all information from 30 lottery games by seeing how many wins were made per stake.

A spokesman for Lottoland said: “When it comes to names, men named Barry, Steve and Michael tended to enjoy the rub of the green, with Claire being the most fortuitous forename for women.

“Maybe try to avoid naming your baby Rebecca, Edward, Ashley, Dominic or Garry though, as these were determined to be the five least fortunate names.”

(Image: David Cook)

According to the research, the unluckiest people are named Rebecca and Garry and live in Clitheroe, in Lancashire.

It was also revealed that men are slightly luckier than women on average, while older folk have more good luck than the youth of today.

Those aged between 41 and 45 have to put up with the worst luck, which could be an explanation for all of those mid-life crises!

As well as Thornton Heath being classed as lucky, Bristol and Brighton were also deemed fortunate, although Birmingham and Belfast came in at the bottom of the charts in terms of luck.

Lottoland also deemed Austria to be the luckiest country to live in, while Brazil was marked as the country with the worst luck.

A spokesman for Lottoland added: “Of course, deep down we all know that nobody is actually 'lucky' or 'unlucky' all the time.

“The old saying probably got it right with 'every dog has its day', which means that the next time you try a lottery bet it may just be the one that hits the jackpot. Even if your name is Becky from Belfast!”