Number 20

In Lightning Lotto under the 5/49 · since May 2026 rules — 151 draws, 5 from 1–49.

16times drawn · chance expected 15 +0.16σ

3draws waiting · a wait this long: 81% for any number

9.7average wait between appearances · chance says 9.8

26longest completed wait · 65% chance of one at least that long

20 is drawn as often as chance explains

Drawn 16 times in 151 draws against 15.4 expected, +0.16σ. Each draw is independent: after 3 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.

Number 20, draw by draw

Drawn 16 times in 151 draws · average wait 9.7 draws · longest completed wait 26 · waiting 3 draws now

a completed wait — darker is longer the wait still running — a lower bound, not a finished gap

Where it lands in a sorted draw

Sort a draw and 20 has a favourite seat — chance gives a small number the low positions more often. That is the shape of sorting, not of the machine.

1st smallest1 · chance 2.0
2nd smallest8 · chance 5.7
3rd smallest5 · chance 5.7
4th smallest2 · chance 2.3
5th smallest0 · chance 0.3

Every position’s lane →

The company it keeps

Seen most often with these — chance gives every partner about 1.3 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

8 32 38 7 16 17

Never drawn alongside 11 of the other 48 numbers; chance expects about 13 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 20 is picked about 1.28× as often as an indifferent choice — 13th most popular of 49. That changes nothing about whether it comes up, and everything about how many ways a jackpot on it would be shared.

Numbers 1–31 — the birthday zone ×1.22
Round numbers (multiples of 10) ×1.05

The model and its sources → · What people believe about 20 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2026-10-20	1	3rd	1 7 20 38 40
2026-10-19	4	4th	2 8 17 20 35
2026-10-15	11	2nd	4 20 24 33 45
2026-10-04	10	3rd	15 17

What this cannot tell you

Nothing here predicts the next draw. A number’s history is a record of a fair machine’s past, and the machine keeps none of it: 20 is drawn with probability 5/49 tonight whatever it did last week.