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Reading the draws and working out what chance predicts.
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Reading the draws and working out what chance predicts.
Mega Millions · every number · star deck
In Mega Millions under the 5/50 + 1/25 · Sep 1996 – Jan 1999 rules — 172 draws, 1 from 1–25 (an earlier era).
Drawn 4 times in 172 draws against 6.9 expected, −1.12σ. Each draw is independent: after 0 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.
Drawn 4 times in 172 draws · average wait 48.3 draws · longest completed wait 77 · drawn in the most recent draw
a completed wait — darker is longer the wait still running — a lower bound, not a finished gap
Too few completed waits to plot a distribution for this number alone.
Sort a draw and 2 has a favourite seat — chance gives a small number the low positions more often. That is the shape of sorting, not of the machine.
No shared draws yet.
Never drawn alongside 24 of the other 24 numbers; chance expects about 24 such strangers by now. Every pair →
Under the crowd model, 2 is picked about 1.34× as often as an indifferent choice — 6th most popular of 25. That changes nothing about whether it comes up, and everything about how many ways a jackpot on it would be shared.
| Date | Wait | Position | The draw |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999-01-12 | 27 | 1st | 2 |
| 1998-10-09 | 41 | 1st | 2 |
| 1998-05-19 | 77 | 1st | 2 |
| 1997-03-07 | — | 1st | 2 |
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: 2 is drawn with probability 1/25 tonight whatever it did last week.