Hot and Cold Lottery Numbers: What They Can and Can't Tell You
Our statistics pages list hot, cold and overdue numbers. Here is what those lists really measure, and why they can't predict the next draw.
Every game on this site has a statistics page listing the most and least drawn numbers, the "hot" ones from recent draws, and the "overdue" ones that haven't appeared for a while. They're some of our most visited pages, so it's worth being clear about what they show.
What the lists measure
- Most and least drawn: how many times each number has come up since the game's current format started.
- Hot and cold: the same count over the last 50 draws only.
- Overdue: numbers with the longest run of draws since they last appeared.
They're accurate counts of what happened. What they can't do is tell you what happens next.
A real example
There have been 1,422 Powerball draws since the current format began in October 2015. With five white balls a draw, each of the 69 numbers should come up about 103 times on average. Right now the most drawn white ball is 21, with 128, and the least drawn is 13, with 79.
That spread looks meaningful, but it's about what chance alone produces. In a fair draw each number's count varies by around 10 either side of the average, and with 69 numbers some will naturally land two or three times that far out. Run a perfectly fair simulation and you'll see the same kind of lopsided table.
The gambler's fallacy
"Overdue" is the most tempting idea. If 13 hasn't appeared for forty draws, surely it's due? It isn't. The balls have no memory. Each draw is a fresh start, and every number has exactly the same chance every time. A number that has been out of the draw for a long while is no more likely to come up next than one drawn last night.
The reverse is also true: "hot" numbers aren't on a streak. Over thousands of draws the counts drift toward even, not because the draw corrects itself but because early differences get swamped by the volume of later draws.
So why show them?
Because people find them interesting, and some like to pick numbers that way, which is fine as long as you know it doesn't change the odds. There's one practical angle. Many people pick birthdays, which means numbers 1 to 31. Your chance of winning is the same whatever you pick, but if you do win a shared prize, numbers above 31 are less likely to be split with other winners.