Number 5

In Megabucks Plus under the 5/41 + 1/0 · Apr 2022 – Apr 2023 rules — 104 draws, 5 from 1–41 (an earlier era).

8times drawn · chance expected 13 −1.40σ

3draws waiting · a wait this long: 77% for any number

13.6average wait between appearances · chance says 8.2

27longest completed wait · 22% chance of one at least that long

5 is drawn as often as chance explains

Drawn 8 times in 104 draws against 12.7 expected, −1.40σ. Each draw is independent: after 3 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.

Number 5, draw by draw

Drawn 8 times in 104 draws · average wait 13.6 draws · longest completed wait 27 · 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 5 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 smallest5 · chance 5.2
2nd smallest3 · chance 2.5
3rd smallest0 · chance 0.3
4th smallest0 · chance 0.0
5th smallest0 · chance 0.0

Every position’s lane →

The company it keeps

Seen most often with these — chance gives every partner about 0.8 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

35 36 1 13 26 31

Never drawn alongside 17 of the other 40 numbers; chance expects about 18 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 5 is picked about 1.34× as often as an indifferent choice — 6th most popular of 41. 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
Numbers 1–12 — day and month overlap ×1.10

The model and its sources → · What people believe about 5 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2023-04-12	27	2nd	1 5 19 31 36
2023-01-07	3	1st	5 10 17 35 40
2022-12-28	11	2nd	1 5 16 18 35
2022-11-19	15	2nd	4

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: 5 is drawn with probability 5/41 tonight whatever it did last week.