The 24 white ball picked in the Mega Millions lottery on Friday night had not rolled out of the machine since Feb. 14, or about 123 days. Considering a ball had rolled out about every 45 days, the number was basically due.
That’s what the following charts, updated after each drawing, help you see: which numbers are more likely because either they haven’t hit for weeks or haven’t rolled out as often.
When is the next Mega Millions drawing?
Tuesday, June 20: The Mega Millions drawings are held every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET. You pick five numbers between 1-70 for the white balls and select one number between 1-25 for the yellow Mega Ball. Match all five white balls in any order and pick the correct red ball, and you’re a jackpot winner.
How much is the Mega Millions jackpot?
The estimated jackpot is $300 million (with a cash option of $156 million); the jackpot grows until it is won. The odds are as high as 1 in 302.6 million to win the jackpot, but as low as 1 in 24 to win your $2 back if just the Mega Ball is correct.
There’s no significant way of improving your odds of winning the jackpot – unless you have millions of dollars to gamble. But if you like to take a bit of luck out of the numbers you select, you can find some options below.
How long has it been since each Mega Millions number won?
Every ball has rolled out in the 100-plus drawings during the past 12 months, but a handful haven’t come up in months, such as Nos. 50 and 56. The Mega Ball 12 hadn’t rolled out since September and then it popped out in April. Now Nos. 3 and 10 are looking good.
But just because a number has or hasn’t surfaced in recent weeks doesn’t make it much more likely that it will surface. Or, just because it was picked recently doesn’t rule a ball out either. No. 2 popped up in three consecutive drawings in February and again in March and May.
The most frequently drawn Mega Millions numbers
These two charts show the dozens of draws during the last couple of years and give you a sense of which numbers hit at above- or below-average rates.
Least likely balls: Nos. 3, 7 and 38 balls have been picked about dozen times, including four April and May drawings.
Most likely balls: No. 49 has hit just five times while no. 70 has hit eight times in the game’s recent history. That said, 49 rolled out in April, and 60, another below average number, rolled out in the first drawing of June.
The most frequently drawn Mega Millions Ball numbers
Among the Mega Balls, Nos. 18 and 24 are the least likely. The 24 ball has rolled out three times this year. Nos. 5 and 7 are well below the expected average. Both were last selected between Feb. 24 and March 10.
How often and how recently have Mega Millions balls hit
After combining the two charts, the Mega Balls 3 and 10, and the white No. 56 ball appear to be even better candidates to roll out of the machines in the coming weeks.
Beware of the back-to-back Mega Millions drawings
With 70 white balls in the hopper, it seems like you can count out the five winning balls from the previous drawing. In general, that’s a good place to start narrowing down the multitude of possibilities.
Based on the results of the last two years, though, white balls show up in back-to-back drawings more often than you might expect: about once every four drawings. A spate of back-to-back drawings in 2022 appears to overstate the frequency a bit.
The 16 ball has rolled out in consecutive drawings twice this year, including the June 2 drawing. On June 13, the No. 19 hit for the second consecutive time. So maybe avoid the back-to-back angle for a few weeks, allowing you to exclude the five winning numbers from the June 16 drawing.
