Texas Two Step draws same lottery numbers 3 months apart

For the 10th time in slightly more than eleven years, the Texas Two Step drawing combination has repeated the 4 white ball combination.  Last night, the numbers:

Monday, 07/23/2012 - 09 15 18 23 BB 30

were selected at random. These were previously drawn just 3 months ago (on April 23, 2012).

In Texas Two Step, a player is required to select 4 white balls from a set numbered 1 to 35.  This means that there are a possible 52,360 combinations.

Our drawing history begins on May 18, 2001, which means that there have been 1,168 drawings during that period. If all combinations were equal, this would represent 2.231% of the population.  However, in that sample, we discover that 10 different combinations have repeated.

You can always learn if the latest drawing results were drawn before by looking at the "At a Glance" pages of our new website. This is the link of our Texas Two Step - At a Glance page. In the center section below the results, you can see if the combination was drawn before. (Note that the contents of this page changes after each drawing, so the messages will be different over time).

Below is a summary of the Texas Two Step dates and numbers that were drawn. Note that the Bonus Balls are different, making the full 5 number combination unique.

Num	Texas Two Step Repeating Combinations Date and Combination
1	02/22/2010 01 02 20 30 BB 26 11/22/2007 01 02 20 30 BB 20
2	10/24/2011 04 06 09 35 BB 16 09/25/2001 04 06 09 35 BB 32
3	02/15/2007 04 13 21 22 BB 11 05/13/2003 04 13 21 22 BB 31
4	08/27/2007 06 12 20 28 BB 26 03/29/2002 06 12 20 28 BB 34
5	08/30/2010 07 16 33 35 BB 27 02/08/2002 07 16 33 35 BB 10
6	05/24/2010 08 10 12 16 BB 09 04/12/2002 08 10 12 16 BB 33
7	07/23/2012 09 15 18 23 BB 30 04/23/2012 09 15 18 23 BB 22
8	12/16/2010 12 27 30 32 BB 21 06/05/2006 12 27 30 32 BB 02
9	06/24/2003 14 18 23 24 BB 18 01/03/2003 14 18 23 24 BB 27
10	06/03/2010 16 20 22 25 BB 31 10/14/2003 16 20 22 25 BB 08

4 of 5 Hot Lotto white balls repeat within 3 drawings

If the Hot Lotto numbers drawn on May 16, 2012 looked familiar, they should have. The reason is that 4 of the 5 numbers picked that night were also drawn on May 5th, which was 3 drawings earlier.

Below are the Hot Lotto results for those two nights.  Notice that 4 of the 5 white balls were the same (5-16-19-39) and the 5th ball was only different by one (35 to 34).

Hot Lotto Results

Date	B1	B2	B3	B4	B5	HB
05/16/2012	5	16	19	35	39	11
05/05/2012	5	16	19	34	39	18

So yes, numbers to reappear and duplicate combinations can happen.

68 Match 5 Mega Millions winners but the 21 in California get low pari-mutuel payouts

What seems to be a record number of the 2nd place Mega Millions winners in the March 20, 2012 drawing illustrates two important lottery oddities.

First, we find that a total there was a total of 68 winners who matched the 5 white balls and won the second tier prize. The white ball numbers drawn were: 01 04 06 11 14. These are classified as "Birthday" numbers because they can all be made from the numbers of the month and the day of month.

In choosing numbers to play, many people use important dates as their numbers.  While we do not know if the majority of winners picked their own numbers, we suspect that they did. This would certainly account for the large amount of winners. However, if most of the winning tickets were generated as Quick Picks, we would have to question the random number generator being used. Most likely though, most of the winners  played their favorite numbers and not quick picks.

Looking at the increase in the annuity jackpot prize by $49 million, we can also estimate that there were approximately 98 to 100 million tickets were sold. Given that number, we would expect to have 25 to 26 match 5 winners. But, since we have 2.6 times that amount, the Birthday Number Theory provides a sound explanation.

The low prize payout to the 21 California winners highlights the second oddity which is because of pari-mutuel payouts in that State. Normally, a Mega Millions match 5 winner without the Megaplier Option would receive $250,000.  But, California pays out the Mega Millions prizes on a pari-mutuel basis (not a fixed prize level). This means that the payout fluctuates depending on the number of winners. The fewer the winners, the higher the prize; and, the more the winners, the lower the prize.

Because of this, the California winners will receive $56,382 each, almost 5 times less than the 47 winners in the other States.  

When multiplying the $56K times the 21 winners, it appears that California expected to see 4 to 5 winners in this tier that would have won $250,000. But because there were 21 winners, they all had to share the allocated prize amount equally which substantially reduced their earnings.

We can learn 2 things from these results:

• First, many people play their birthday numbers which are often duplicates,
• Second, try not to buy tickets in California if you live on a border state where the payouts are fixed.

Lastly, we wish to congratulate all of last night's Mega Millions winners on a job well done!

US Hot Lotto and UK Thunderball draw same five white balls on Saturday night

We often hear about the same numbers being drawn in various Pick 3 games, but it is extremely rare that two larger lottery games draw the same numbers. Even more rare is having the same combination drawn on the same night.

Well, that's exactly what happened on Saturday, August 20, 2011. First, the UK Thunderball white ball combination of:

6 7 11 22 33

was drawn. Then, a few hours later, the US Hot Lotto rolled out the same identical 5 white numbers.

We wrote about this rare event in our Bimonthly blog post: Same 5 lottery numbers are drawn on same night in two different lottery games.

But, we think this news is worth repeating in case you missed it!

Texas 2 Step Dances Straight and Narrow

In one of the very rare draws, the Texas Two Step Lottery selected the straight white ball sequence:

19 20 21 22

on the Monday, May 2, 2011. There are only 32 straight sequential number sets of the possible 52,360 white ball combinations.

Unlike other lottery games that have drawn sequential (or near sequential) numbers, there was not an unusually high number of 4 white ball winners (only 9). Thus, we do not believe that many of the Two Step players play the range of straight number patterns.

Crazy Combo Trivia to ponder while waiting for the $218M Powerball Drawing

Two of our favorite lotteries drew unique crazy combinations the past few days that which we thought might interest you.

The first was Hot Lotto, whose numbers on Saturday, April 2, 2011 were:

16 20 25 28 34 and Hot Ball 14.

Looking at the deltas between these numbers, we find 04 - 05 - 03 - 06. When we move the Hot Ball to the beginning, we obtain a delta of 02 to the first number. Re-arranging these, we get a sequential delta series of :

02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06.

The second game was Texas Two Step which selected the 4 white ball series on Thursday March 31, 2011:

03 04 09 16

Looking at these numbers we find that the 3rd ball (09) is the square of the first number (03), and that the 4rd ball (16) is the square of the second number (04).

These are simply two more pieces lottery trivia that will keep you amused while you are waiting for the big $218 million Powerball drawing this Wednesday night.

Lottery Mania on Both Sides of the Pond

We start this week with the two XX Millions offering near record Jackpots.

• In the U.S., the Mega Millions annuity is $244 million, which is the 10th highest range, and
• In Europe, the Euro Millions Jackpot is €133 million, a level not reached since 2006.

Adding in the Powerball lottery's $101 million jackpot, we have nearly 1/2 a billion U.S. dollars being offered to lottery players this week.

Maybe our Federal and State governments should consider being active lottery players to help reduce their burdensome debt.

Odd Powerball Numbers Counter Mega Millions Even Numbers

Like clockwork, the Powerball lottery counterbalanced Mega Millions all odd number drawing with its own set of all even numbers.

On Tuesday March 8th, Mega Millions drew the odd number white ball combination:

03 17 19 41 55 (all odd and 4 prime).

The next night, Powerball's winning Wednesday night numbers were selected:

12 28 28 40 48 (all even and all divisible by 4).

The chances of all even or all odd number combinations are approximately 2.57% for Mega Millions and 2.37% for Powerball. This means that we would expect to see between 4 to 6 occurances of both odd and even combos within a year. However, the laws of randomness have been tilting the scales to the even side only in both of these games.

During the past Mega Millions year, we observe 3 all even combinations and only 1 all odd. The yearly Powerball deviation is more extreme with 5 all even combos and 0 all odd combos.

While this imbalance may seem to contradict randomness, we need to remember that the probabilities of flipping a coin are 50% heads and 50% tails.  During any short term observance, we may find streaks of all heads or all tails for a while.

Thus, we must not find it unusual to see that only one side of the lottery even-odd bell curve has received the majority of occurrences recently. We must conclude that in total, the outside sets perform as expected. While we know that all odd number combinations are overdue, we must play the odds and say that we are sure that either all even or all odd numbers will be drawn, but we don't know which. Since there is a 50% chance either occurring, we need to continue playing the two outside sets of numbers to be sure of capturing the next winning combination.

Sum of First 2 Numbers Equal Third Number

In both the last Powerball and Mega Millions drawings, the sum of the first two white ball numbers equals the third number. As you can see, we have listed the drawing results for each below:

• 01/15/11 - PB   9 13 22 23 37
• 01/14/11 - MM 2 15 17 33 35

Since we enter the lottery results by hand after every drawing, we have noticed this pattern quite often. So, we decided to calculate the probability of these combinations being selected.

• In Powerball, there are 219,646 combinations where this occurs. This represents 4.387% of the population; and we would expect to see this once in every 22.79 drawings.
• In Mega Millions, there are 176,904 combinations where this occurs. This represents 4.631% of the population; and we would expect to see this once in every 21.59 drawings.

Checking the results of the past 26 drawings, we have found that this restriction has occurred  twice in both lotteries (on 01/14/11 and 11/16/10 for Mega Millions), and (on 01/15/11 and 12/22/10 for Powerball). While this happens with double the frequency as we mathematically expect, we are not convinced that this is a viable strategy as yet. So for now, we attribute the sum of the first 2 numbers equaling the third number as part of the normally expected random distributions.

Current Mega Millions Jackpot Tied for 6th Place All Time High

While many had predicted that the days of large jackpots were over, the current Mega Millions jackpot ranks 6th in the all time Mega Millions (Big Game) History.

The drawing on Tuesday January 4, 2011 will be the 18th since the last Mega Millions jackpot was won on November 9, 2010. Below are listed the actual size of the jackpots won, the advertised level, where the tickets were sold, and the dates.

• $390M - 370 GA/NJ Mar 06 2007 (MM)
• $336M - 325 CA/NY Aug 28 2009 (MM)
• $330M - 330 MD/NJ/TX/VA Aug 31 2007 (MM)
• $325M - 325 GA/IL/NJ Apr 16 2002 (Big Game)
• $315M - 315 CA Nov 15 2005 (MM)
• $294M - 290 MA July 02 2004 (MM)
• Current Jackpot - $290 Million (MM)
• $275M - 270 GA Feb 22 2008 (MM)
• $270M - 267 OH Feb 28 2006 (MM)
• $266M - 266 CA May 4 2010 (MM)
• $265M - 265 OH Apr 18 2006 (MM)
• $258M - 250 NJ Sep 16 200 (MM)

Related articles

• Mega Millions jackpot grows to $290 million (ajc.com)
• Mega Millions jackpot and lottery sales glitter (boston.com)

Almost Half of Mega Millions Jackpots Are Over $100 Million

Here's a little a piece of lottery trivia. During 2010, there were 13 Mega Millions jackpots won. Of those, 5 have been well over $100M. The largest was $266M won in May.   If this lottery is won tonight, it will be the 6th prize over $100 million, which is nearly half of all those won this year.

If nobody wins tonight, the jackpot will increase by nearly $30 million, and 2010 will have one more chance so see a prize winner over $200 million.

Good Luck to All!

Hot Lotto Jackpot is Third Highest Ever

Image via Wikipedia

There has been 60 drawings since the last Hot Lotto jackpot of was last won on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010. That lucky winner was from South Dakota and won $10.02 million. 

This Wednesday's annuity is now estimated to be worth $15.9M. If won, this will be the 3rd highest payout since the game began in 2002. The previous record Hot Lotto jackpots are summarized below.

• The game's highest prize was $19.97 million and was sold in Iowa in the January 13, 2007 drawing.
• The second largest jackpot was won on August 22nd, 2009. The winning ticket was worth $16.94M and was sold in Delaware.

If someone wins this week, they will have the option to: take this $15.90M annuity and receive 25 payments of $0.636 million each; or to receive a cash payout of $10.28 million. Good luck to all during this Christmas week!

Lotto 649 Draws Mostly Prime Numbers

This is just a short bit of Crazy Combo Lottery Trivia.

On Saturday December 11, 2010, the Canadian Lotto 649 main set of numbers were:

 02 07 13 17 27 41

What's unique about this combination is that 5 of the 6 numbers were all prime numbers. These are shown as red. Only the number 27 was not a prime number, but, it is 3 cubed ( 3 x 3 x 3 ).

Using the game's format of 49 white balls, we find that there are 15 pure prime numbers (not including the number 01). Of this set, only one (the number 02) is even, and the rest are odd. Players who limit there selections to these 15 numbers would have a total of 5,005 combinations to play. In that drawing, there were 5 tickets matching 5 of the 6 main balls; and, each of these won C$52,830.60. 

We don't know if these gamers were playing prime numbers, but if they were, the system worked wonderfully!

Lottery Leads UK Searchs in 2010

According to Metro.co.uk, the word "Lottery" was the thing that UK Brits searched for most in 2010 on Yahoo. This was followed by the term "Job Centre" and "Weather" was third. 

According to the article, the poor economy has pushed the people to experience many money worries. Everywhere, people are hoping to secure their future by winning a substantial prize and climbing out of debt.

For those of us who specialize in providing lottery related information, we are not surprised. After all, rising costs, layoffs, and unemployment are being experienced on both the North American and European continents. People everywhere are having financial difficulties, and both the National and State operated lotteries offer players the opportunity to resolve their financial woos, with little capital outlay. Let's see if the same terms are as popular in the United States as well!

UK Thunderball Reveals Delta Equaling Multiple of Sixes

Once again, the UK Thunderball Lottery drew a somewhat Crazy Combo on Friday November 19, 2010. In that drawing, the 5 white ball sequence was:

07 13 25 31 37

If you examine these numbers closely, you will observe the delta spread between the numbers to each be a multiple of 6.

Deltas : [ 06 12 06 06 ]

Due to the nature of randomness, the space between numbers is rarely a consistent spread or an even multiple of an integer. 

Additionally, this sequence contains 4 Prime numbers and one Square number.

Further, the entire sequence consists of odd numbers, but this is expected because the starting number is odd and each of the deltas are even.

Many lottery experts advise against choosing numbers that follow a pattern. But, we recommend that if you are trying to devise a winning lottery selection combination, don't ever dismiss the hidden power of multiples.

Are you Superstitious? Then Play Wednesday's Irish Lotto

Image by getgood via Flickr

The Jackpot prize for this coming's Wednesday October 13 2010 Irish Lotto drawing is set at €12 million.

And, this will also be the 13th drawing since the last winner. Hmmm, the 13th drawing on the 13th day of the month. (Too bad it wasn't for €13M)

The last time the jackpot reached this level was in April 2010 when 1 winner claimed a €16 million prize.

So, if you are superstitious, perhaps you should play combinations containing the number 13 in various locations and multiples (13, 26, 39).

And maybe, just maybe, you'll win.

Thunderball Picks 5 White Balls All in the Twenties

On Saturday, September 11 2010, the UK Thunderball Lottery drew the 5 white ball sequence

23 24 26 28 29

The interesting fact about these results is that all the numbers were within the same "decade" grouping of 20's. This is indeed a rare occurrence in all lotteries since there are very few combinations because there are only 10 balls numbered between 20 and 29. Using strict combinatorials, we find that there are only 252 possible combinations out of the total 575,757 possible in the Thunderball 1-39 number range. In decimal, this equals 0.000438 of the total combinatorial population.

Because sequences of this nature are rarely selected in any lottery, most serious players shy away of this type of strategy.

Yet surprisingly so, there are 10 winners listed as matching this 5 white ball sequence on the official Thunderball results site.  Go figure!

UK Lotto Reaches £10 Million

Image by jaqian via Flickr

For the first time in 3 1/2 months, the UK Lotto has grown to £10 Million. Most of the jackpots won are approximately £2.4M, £4.5M, and £7M.

Previously, a wopping £17 Million jackpot was won on April 14, 2010 after a quadruple rollover; and, £10 Million won  on December 30, 2009.

Continuous jackpot rollovers of two or more drawings in the UK Lotto are very rare. And, this occurrence is only the third this year!

Good luck to all in tomorrow night's drawing!

Cheers,

JL.............

Some Girls Have All the Luck

According to a number of sources, Joan Ginther, originally from Bishop Texas, has won her 4th multi-million dollar lottery prize!

Beginning in 1993, she won a Lotto Texas $5.4 million prize. Then about 13 years later, she won another $2.0 million scratch-off jackpot. Soon after in 2008, Ms Ginther landed a winning $3.0 million scratch-off ticket.

And, just recently in 2010, she claimed one of the top $10 million prizes offered in the Texas Lottery's $140 million Extreme Payout game.

While many of us complain that we can't even win a $2 Mega Millions or $3 Powerball prize, this one lucky woman has shot for the stars and reaped the rewards.

Reminder: Enter the Lottery Trivia Challengs

We wanted to remind everyone that our sister site, John Lottery's Bimonthly Lottery Articles has launched it's first Trivia Question. Please read our:

Lottery Trivia Challenge #1

Simply read the question, and enter your response as a Comment.

The correct answer will be posted on Monday.

And, don't forget to leave your name & URL. All those who respond will get a link back to their site in Monday's answer! (Even if you're wrong or simply don't know)

So, give it a try! Hey, the Lottery is a great thing to dream about!

Thanks,

JL..........