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By Aleks Phillips
U.S. News Reporter
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Your lucky number could be 49 or 8 if you are one of the many millions of Americans hoping to walk away with close to a billion dollars this Friday in the Mega Millions lottery.
Due to a series of 28 rollovers, the jackpot prize for the week has risen to $910 million—which, if won, would be the fifth largest prize in the lottery's history. A winning ticket would have to match all six numbers drawn including the gold-colored Mega Ball.
Despite being a random selection, some numbers have been drawn less often than others in the competition's history, and could be due an appearance any time soon.
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According to statistics produced by U.S.A. Mega, an online lottery resource, while the number 22 has been drawn a whopping 34 times as the golden Mega Ball, numbers seven and eight have appeared half as much.
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Meanwhile, 11 and nine have appeared as the vital sixth number drawn more than five percent of the time, the figures show, but three, five, six, 16 and 23 have all been drawn just 3.17 percent of the time—19 times in the past.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and in a random draw all numbers should have the same probability of being picked—four percent in a field of 25 Mega Balls. Just because an outcome happened less than you'd expect in the past, that doesn't mean it is more likely to happen in the future.
On Tuesday's draw—when the jackpot rolled over last, rising from $820 million to its current total—the Mega Ball was 25, which has been drawn a relatively high 28 times, or 4.67 percent of the time.
There are, however, five other numbers lottery participants need to get right and in the correct order to take home the jackpot prize money, and there are far more to choose from.
Out of 70 possible balls, 14 has been drawn the most, appearing 55 times in the past. But number 49 has come up the least, appearing 4.67 percent of the time and in just 0.93 percent of draws.
While numbers three, 10, 17 and 46 have all appeared more than 9 percent of the time in one of the five slots, 50 and 51 are the next least historically prevalent numbers, coming up in the winning numbers 5.18 percent of the time.
On Tuesday, the winning white balls would have been three, five, six, 44 and 61—all of which have occurred 34 times or more in the past.
Brad Maione, a spokesperson for Mega Millions in New York, confirmed that the jackpot would roll over to next Tuesday if a winning ticket is not found, but said: "We cannot opine on possible outcomes."
"The drawing machines and ball sets for each game are randomly selected and certified by outside auditors, to ensure that balls and equipment allow each number an equal chance of being drawn," he added. "Each lottery drawing machine and ball set used goes through a series of pre-drawing tests to ensure the absolute randomness of the results."
Mega Millions said on Wednesday that there had been more than 2.5 million winners across the U.S. in the last draw—but none got all the numbers correct. Two tickets matched all five white balls, with the holders winning the lottery's second prize.
One, sold in Texas, was worth $4 million because it had been bought with an optional Megaplier, which gave the ticket four times its value. The other was sold in Maryland and is worth a million dollars.
Since the last jackpot was won on April 18, Mega Millions said that there had been 23.2 million winning tickets of varying prizes, with 41 tickets across 20 states taking home a million dollars or more.
The jackpot has only ever tipped over a billion dollars four times in the past—all within the last five years. The largest ever prize, of over $1.5 billion, was won in South Carolina in October 2018. Prize money worth nearly $1.35 billion was won in Maine in January this year.
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