Some say the lottery is a game of luck, and that draws are fickle. Some say the lottery can be analyzed and numbers are redrawn after a certain number of days – giving life to Hot lotto numbers, as well as Cold lotto numbers.
HOT: Numbers that recently appeared on a draw, and are not expected to appear for a while. Numbers that appear frequently.
COLD: Numbers that haven’t been drawn for a while and are likely believed to turn up very soon. Numbers that appear rarely.
Players tend to list down which numbers are hot and cold, and pick their combinations based on those findings. And whether or not it’s nothing but an implausible superstition has nothing to do with the obsessive way players continuously use them to an unbelievable extent. After all, players will do almost anything to find a loophole that will give them that extra edge in order to win the lottery.
And believe me, if they don’t find that loophole, they will most likely make one themselves.
But here’s the cold hard truth. Hot lotto numbers never work.
In order to understand everything that I will discuss here, you need to understand some basic knowledge of probability. I would like to tell you that this article requires that you read this article first – How To Win The Lottery According To Math.
Why You Should Avoid Hot Lotto Numbers
One problem with hot numbers is the decision players make on which hot numbers to pick for their game. For example if you play the Powerball with 5 numbers, which of the top 10 numbers will you pick?
There are possible solutions. You pick all the 10 and generate all the possible combinations.
But, that’s easier said than done.
The issue is how many lines you can afford to buy. With 10 numbers, you need to play 252 games to use all the 10 numbers respectively.
10C5
= (10/5)(9/4)(8/3)(7/2)(6/1)
= 252 combinations
At the time of writing, the cost of each ticket in US Powerball is $2.
Therefore you need $504.00 to play for all 252 games. It’s safe to say it’s not the most practical option for you.
Aside from that, a player needs arithmetic skills in order to produce all the distinct 252 combinations.
Well, at least, if you play the Australian lottery, you can pick the top 8 and play the “system 8” game option where you can choose 8 numbers.
With system 8, you are guaranteed to play all the 28 distinct combinations without having to produce them on your own.
8C6
= (8/6)(7/5)(6/4)(5/3)(4/2)(3/1)
= (4)(7)
= 28 combinations
However, playing with system 8 is still expensive.
For majority of players who use hot lotto numbers as their strategy, the simplest solution would be to get the top 5 or top 6 numbers. And for lottery games which allow system play, it will be easier for players to form the combinations around their chosen numbers.
However, statistics show no signs of either of the two being effective which brings me to my next point.
Mathematically, why do hot lotto numbers never work?
Hot numbers impede your ability to pick the best lottery numbers to play based on the best patterns that appear most frequently in a lottery. Again, if you read my article How To Win The Lottery According To Math, you will understand the role of lottery patterns.
Hot lotto numbers leave you with popular individual numbers, but the probability of these numbers as a combination does not come close with the probability of patterns or combinations that have the best chance of getting drawn.
By now, you should already know that winning the lottery is about playing with the best patterns that give you the best chance of winning.
In short, forget hot numbers. Play with the best performing patterns.
There’s no guarantee that when you pick hot lotto numbers, you’re forming the combinations from the right pattern. This is the reason why I recommend that you pick the best patterns and choose your numbers based on that pattern.
Where to get the right lottery patterns? Become a member of Lottometrix and inside the members area, you will find all the best patterns that you should be playing in your favorite lottery.
Let’s discuss the hot numbers from each of the popular lotteries below:
Australian Lottery
Draw Dates: Jun 02, 1990 to Dec 28, 1999
Total Draws: 1000 draws
Hot Numbers: 3, 9, 15, 16, 19, 26, 35, 36
Let’s see how many combinations we can generate from these hot lotto numbers.
8C6
= (8/6)(7/5)(6/4)(5/3)(4/2)(3/1)
= (4)(7)
= 28 combinations
Then, we analyze each combination to determine their corresponding pattern.
From the table above, none of the number combinations belong to the best patterns that appear most frequently in the Australian lottery.
In a study conducted by Lottometrix, Australian lottery is divided into 58 groups. Sorted from best to the worst, the best patterns belong to group 1. Comparing the combinations taken from the best patterns, the combinations formed from ‘hot numbers’ show absolutely no contest. Not one of the combinations formed from ‘hot numbers’ belong to the best Australian Lottery patterns.
If you play these supposedly hot lotto numbers from December 28, 1999 to May 28, 2016. That’s 1,158 draws of continuous playing for almost 17 frustrating years without winning.
Let’s follow the same analysis with the rest of the popular lotteries…
Euro Jackpot
Draw Dates: Mar 23, 2012 to Feb 14, 2014
Total Draws: 100 draws
Hot numbers: 6-7-18-19-22-25-49
Finding: None of the combinations formed from hot numbers belongs to the best patterns in Euro Jackpot.
Irish Lottery
Draw Dates: Sept 05, 2015 to Feb 24, 2016
Total Draws: 50 draws
Hot Numbers: 1-3-7-10-14-15-25-32
Finding: All combinations are based on bad patterns.
Euro Millions
Draw Dates: Apr 16, 2004 to Feb 08, 2008
Total Draws: 200 draws
Hot Numbers: 1-3-11-12-21-23-50
Finding: All combinations are based on bad patterns.
My Overall Recommendations
As seen from the various tables above, it should be clear now how and why hot numbers never work in a lottery.
Hot Numbers = Low probability of winning
Here’s my recommendation: pick the best patterns in your lottery and pick the numbers based on that patterns.
Best Lottery Patterns = High probability of winning.
Super Tip: When you register to become member of Lottometrix, you will discover a really cool trick to really boost your chances of winning tenfold.
It’s free to become member of Lottometrix team.
Players Who Use Hot Lotto Numbers VS Players Who Don’t
Believers of the hot and cold strategy are players who try to control the lottery’s outcome. They are the ones determined to give meaning and direction to the lottery’s way of selection. With hot and cold numbers by their side, they have comfort.
But there’s one thing these players missed, and that’s the fact that hot and cold numbers here are hot and cold numbers over there as well. That means other players are listing the same numbers down and playing them.
And how is that bad, you ask?
If those numbers do come up in a draw, you get to share the jackpot with tons of other players who believe in that strategy – making the initial cause for playing the lottery pointless.
On the other hand, players who don’t use this strategy maximize their returns by playing unpopular sets of numbers.
Our members-only area will have you looking at the lottery in a new way. Stop playing around with hot and cold numbers, and take a look at patterns that are more likely to appear than others.
But you may say, all these are based on my mathematical theory. Well, let’s dig deeper into this hot and cold strategy by looking at the actual lottery results. Let’s start with Australian Lottery.
Australian Lottery
Let me explain. What you can see above is a running data.
On the first row, the lottery combination listed is 9, 15, 16, 19, 26, and 36.
On the second row, you’ll notice that 9 has been replaced by 3.
This is because the combinations above were formed from hot lotto numbers.
On the first row the numbers were taken from the hot list of June 02, 1990 to December 28, 1999 (a total of 1000 draws), and this could only mean that the draws prior to or on the December 31st draw drew the number 3, replacing 9 from the list of hot lotto numbers on the second row.
The other combinations listed above follow the same trend of hot numbers getting replaced by hotter ones.
Now, what we’re trying to prove here is that hot lotto numbers never work.
So let’s say that starting from December 28, 1999, I kept playing the lottery, while placing my money on a combination formed from hot numbers; looking at Figure 1A above (which was taken from actual Australian Lottery results) the data under the occurrence of the selected combinations makes it evident that the said hot lotto numbers never got picked in any of the draws leading to May 28, 2016.
Keeping it up until May 28, 2016, that would have been a total of 1158 assumed draws wasted or 17 years of playing the lottery blindly.
Yikes.
If it helps, at that time, there were 10 hot Australian Lottery numbers:
19 = 164
26 = 156
16 = 153
15 = 151
36 = 149
9 = 146
3 = 146
35 = 145
34 = 141
41 = 141
If you want to make use all of these numbers to play the lottery, then you need to buy 210 tickets to play with all the possible combinations.
At the time of writing, the cost of playing 210 Australian Lottery tickets is $149.20. If you play every day, this is going to cost you heaps.
For majority of lottery players, this is not the most practical thing to do.
So, to be more cost-effective, starting from the first 1000 draws, we took the first six hot lotto numbers and formed the combination from that. We then checked if these numbers ever appeared in the succeeding draws up to May 28, 2016.
Again, looking at the running data on Figure 1A, if we traveled back in time to December 28, 1999 and played the top 6 hot lotto numbers for the next 1158 draws, you’ll see that the database we retrieved shows no sign of the combination appearing until May 28, 2016.
Again, that’s almost 17 years of playing the lottery in vain.
The same goes for the second row. If we started playing from December 31, 1999 to May 28, 2016 using the hot numbers at that time, for 17 years, we’d be coming home empty-handed.
Frustrating, but lesson learned.
Now, because you might not be totally convinced that hot numbers never work, let’s look at more actual data from other lotteries.
Euro Jackpot Lottery
The Euro Jackpot Lottery first went live on 2012, which explains why the data above has limited number of draws.
However, looking at Figure 1B, the data makes it evident that hot lotto numbers never work even with the use of data that covers lesser number of draws.
On the first row, we gathered the hot lotto numbers from the first 50 draws of the Euro Jackpot – from March 23, 2012 to March 01, 2013. Starting from March 01, 2013, if you were to play until May 27, 2016 with a combination formed from hot Euro Jackpot numbers, it’s pretty clear that you would’ve wasted your time and money on 168 draws.
The succeeding rows follow the same trend and still show no signs of hot numbers getting drawn.
Euro Millions
Now, let’s take a look at the Euro Millions.
Again, on the first row we’ve taken the top six hot numbers gathered from April 16, 2004 to February 08, 2008 draws. Starting from February 08, 2008, if we were to play with hot numbers until May 27, 2016, we would have been frustrated for the following 8 years or 696 draws.
The following rows follow the same hot number trend, and still no appearance of combinations formed from hot numbers. This can’t be a coincidence anymore, right?
Let’s move on to another lottery.
Irish Lottery
Even though the Irish Lottery recently changed its previous 6/45 game matrix to 6/47, the draws available from the start of the 6/47 Irish Lottery is sufficient enough to provide us with the data intended to prove that playing with hot numbers in a lottery don’t work.
In light of this, on the first row, we’ve taken the hottest Irish Lottery numbers from September 05, 2015 to February 24, 2016. If you were to play for every draw starting February 24, 2016 to May 28, 2016, you would have lost for 26 draws.
Again, the following rows follow the same trend on row 1.
Still, no appearance of a combination formed from hot lotto numbers. Convinced yet?
Mega Millions
Due to the Mega Millions matrix change that occurred on October 2013, the number of draws used in the running data table above contains a limited number of draws. Still, the amount of draws present is sizable enough to prove that combinations formed from hot lotto numbers never appear in a draw, at least not yet.
The rows on Figure 1E feature the same trend which the previous figures above follow. Similarly, after gathering the hot numbers from October 22, 2013 to October 3, 2014 (a total of 100 draws), if you were to play with the top six hot numbers until May 27, 2016, you would have ended up wasting a lot of money.
UK National Lottery
The UK National Lottery changed is matrix as recent as October of last year. This explains why the data in Figure 1F is extremely scarce. However, the data collected, starting from the 1st draw to the 50th draw, is sufficient enough to provide us with a conclusive answer regarding hot numbers and their magic.
As you can see from Figure 1F row 1, if you formed a combination using the hot numbers from October 10, 2015 to March 30, 2015, you’d be wasting your money for 17 draws or until May 28, 2016.
The succeeding rows, again, follow the same trend.
Another conclusive proof that hot numbers don’t work in a lottery.
US Powerball
Another lottery which incorporate recent game changes, the US Powerball is one of the biggest lotteries of the world. It also holds the place of producing the biggest lottery jackpot at a $1.5 Billion mark.
Let’s see how hot numbers fare around the US Powerball’s astronomical odds of winning.
Although we’re facing yet another limited number of draws, the data gathered is enough to provide us with a conclusion regarding hot numbers in the US Powerball.
On row 1, we’ve gathered the 6 hottest numbers from October 07, 2015 to March 26, 2016 (a total of 50 draws). If you were to play with these 6 hot numbers until May 28, 2016, guess what? Yes. You’d be wasting money.
The data says it all. You’re better off picking random combinations rather than playing with combinations formed from hot lotto numbers.
The fact that none of the hot numbers above appeared in a single draw leading up to the present should be enough for you to drop the strategy of playing with hot numbers. After all, everything in this article is from solid, reliable, and statistical proof.
However, if that doesn’t convince you, then you should check out the above lotteries’ respective analysis in our Members Area. If you sign up now, in three minutes or less, you’ll know how to win the lottery by using probability analysis.
So if, after reading this post, you’re ready to switch strategies, sign up to Lottometrix for free, and start viewing the patterns, forming your combinations right, and winning back every penny you’ve ever put into the lottery!