Hot and Cold Powerball Numbers: What the Data Really Shows

"Hot" Powerball numbers are the ones drawn most often in the past, and "cold" numbers are the ones drawn least often. Both are real, measurable facts about history, but neither tells you anything about the next drawing. Every Powerball drawing is independent, so every number has the same chance every time, no matter how often it has come up before.

We wanted to show that with real data rather than just say it. So we counted every official Powerball drawing under the current game format, from October 7, 2015 through October 7, 2026, and compared the results with what pure chance would produce. The short version: the "hot" and "cold" numbers look exactly like what you would expect from a fair, random game.

Where the data comes from

We used the official Powerball draw history published by New York State on its open-data portal (data.ny.gov), which lists the five white balls and the Powerball for every drawing since 2010.

We only counted drawings from October 7, 2015 onward. That's when Powerball moved to its current format of five white balls from 1 to 69 and a red Powerball from 1 to 26. (Before that, the white balls went up to 59 and the Powerball up to 35, which you can see in the data itself: no white ball above 59 appears before that date.) Mixing the two formats would make numbers 60–69 look "cold" for no reason other than that they didn't exist yet. Our history of Powerball covers the earlier formats.

That leaves 1,417 drawings, through the drawing of Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Double Play drawings are not included.

What "fair" looks like: the expected count

Before looking at the results, it helps to know what to expect.

• Each drawing pulls 5 of 69 white balls, so any given white ball has a 5/69 (about 7.25%) chance per drawing. Over 1,417 drawings, that's an average of 1,417 × 5 ÷ 69 ≈ 102.7 appearances per white ball.
• Each drawing pulls 1 of 26 red balls, so the average is 1,417 ÷ 26 ≈ 54.5 appearances per Powerball number.

Random results never land exactly on the average. The typical wobble (one standard deviation) is about ±9.8 for a white ball and about ±7.2 for a Powerball number. With 69 white balls, you'd expect a few of them to end up two or more standard deviations from the average purely by chance.

The "hot" and "cold" white balls since 2015

Here are the most and least frequently drawn white balls across all 1,417 drawings.

The expected count is about 102.7 for every ball. So 21 has come up about 24 times more than average, and 13 about 26 times fewer.

The chart below shows all 69 white balls at once. The line marks the 102.68 appearances each ball would have if the counts were perfectly even.

Times drawnExpected if perfectly even (102.68)

Loading chart…

Source: official Powerball results (New York State open data), 1,417 drawings from 2015-10-07 to 2026-10-07. Calculated by TodayPowerball. Past frequencies do not change future odds.

View data table (69 rows)

	Times drawn	Expected if perfectly even (102.68)
1	93	102.68
2	103	102.68
3	113	102.68
4	99	102.68
5	94	102.68
6	109	102.68
7	96	102.68
8	96	102.68
9	96	102.68
10	95	102.68
11	100	102.68
12	105	102.68
13	77	102.68
14	97	102.68
15	97	102.68
16	112	102.68
17	102	102.68
18	105	102.68
19	104	102.68
20	102	102.68
21	127	102.68
22	91	102.68
23	119	102.68
24	100	102.68
25	91	102.68
26	83	102.68
27	118	102.68
28	120	102.68
29	95	102.68
30	103	102.68
31	100	102.68
32	118	102.68
33	117	102.68
34	84	102.68
35	92	102.68
36	118	102.68
37	112	102.68
38	96	102.68
39	109	102.68
40	105	102.68
41	92	102.68
42	99	102.68
43	99	102.68
44	112	102.68
45	102	102.68
46	83	102.68
47	113	102.68
48	92	102.68
49	84	102.68
50	102	102.68
51	90	102.68
52	110	102.68
53	114	102.68
54	100	102.68
55	95	102.68
56	101	102.68
57	100	102.68
58	100	102.68
59	113	102.68
60	95	102.68
61	126	102.68
62	113	102.68
63	117	102.68
64	125	102.68
65	94	102.68
66	102	102.68
67	104	102.68
68	99	102.68
69	116	102.68

Chart: TradingView Lightweight Charts™ · Data & analysis: TodayPowerball

What stands out is how ordinary the spread looks. Most bars sit within about 10 of the line, a handful poke 15 to 25 above or below it, and there's no visible pattern by number range: low, middle and high numbers (including 60–69) all have tall and short bars mixed together. That is exactly what a fair drum produces. What the chart does not show is any tendency. A tall bar is a record of the past 1,417 drawings, not a forecast for the 1,418th.

The "hot" and "cold" Powerballs since 2015

The expected count is about 54.5 for each red ball.

Times drawnExpected if perfectly even (54.5)

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Source: official Powerball results (New York State open data), 1,417 drawings from 2015-10-07 to 2026-10-07. Calculated by TodayPowerball. Past frequencies do not change future odds.

View data table (26 rows)

	Times drawn	Expected if perfectly even (54.5)
1	59	54.5
2	56	54.5
3	59	54.5
4	66	54.5
5	60	54.5
6	52	54.5
7	48	54.5
8	46	54.5
9	58	54.5
10	51	54.5
11	48	54.5
12	48	54.5
13	53	54.5
14	68	54.5
15	46	54.5
16	40	54.5
17	45	54.5
18	62	54.5
19	51	54.5
20	61	54.5
21	63	54.5
22	48	54.5
23	52	54.5
24	63	54.5
25	60	54.5
26	54	54.5

Chart: TradingView Lightweight Charts™ · Data & analysis: TodayPowerball

The red-ball chart looks bumpier than the white-ball chart, and that's expected too. Each drawing pulls only one red ball, so every Powerball number has had about half as many chances to appear as each white ball. Neither 68 nor 40 is out of line with chance, as the tests below show.

Is any of this unusual? We checked

A gap of 127 vs. 77 looks dramatic. The question is whether it's bigger than chance would produce. We tested it two ways.

Test 1: Simulate a perfectly fair game

We used a computer to run 2,000 simulated "histories" of 1,417 perfectly random Powerball drawings each, using the same 69/26 format. In each simulated history, we recorded the most- and least-drawn numbers. Here are the typical (median) results, next to reality:

In 90% of the simulated fair histories, the top white ball appeared between 120 and 135 times and the bottom one between 73 and 86 times. The real numbers fall comfortably inside both ranges. A perfectly random game produces "hot" and "cold" numbers just like these. The spread isn't evidence of a pattern; it's what randomness looks like.

Test 2: A standard chi-square test

Statisticians use a chi-square test to check whether counts are spread out more unevenly than chance allows. For the white balls, the test statistic is about 79.8 with 68 degrees of freedom, a p-value of roughly 0.16. For the Powerball, it's about 24.3 with 25 degrees of freedom, a p-value of roughly 0.50. Neither result comes anywhere near the usual threshold for "suspicious" (0.05 or lower). In plain English: the draw history is consistent with every number being equally likely.

Short windows make it worse, not better

Many websites show "hot numbers" from just the last 50 or 100 drawings. Short windows make random noise look even more meaningful.

In the last 100 drawings in our data (February 18 through October 7, 2026), white ball 64 came up 14 times, while the average for 100 drawings is about 7.2. That sounds like a streak. But with 69 balls and only 100 drawings, it's normal for at least one ball to roughly double its average by luck alone. Pick a different 100-draw window and you'll get a different "hottest" number.

The "overdue" list: how long since each number was drawn

The other popular statistic is the gap: drawings since a number last appeared. Here it is for every white ball as of October 7, 2026.

Drawings since last seen

Loading chart…

Source: official Powerball results (New York State open data), 1,417 drawings from 2015-10-07 to 2026-10-07. Calculated by TodayPowerball. Past frequencies do not change future odds. A long gap does not make a number "due" — every drawing is independent.

View data table (69 rows)

	Drawings since last seen
1	56
2	7
3	15
4	2
5	6
6	3
7	7
8	22
9	7
10	15
11	0
12	18
13	0
14	0
15	6
16	1
17	4
18	8
19	10
20	10
21	0
22	33
23	1
24	9
25	9
26	6
27	23
28	13
29	4
30	6
31	20
32	1
33	3
34	52
35	26
36	1
37	16
38	19
39	13
40	5
41	8
42	2
43	39
44	2
45	8
46	31
47	14
48	28
49	4
50	18
51	57
52	5
53	14
54	1
55	2
56	13
57	5
58	7
59	2
60	27
61	10
62	17
63	23
64	9
65	0
66	24
67	10
68	8
69	11

Chart: TradingView Lightweight Charts™ · Data & analysis: TodayPowerball

A few balls have long gaps. White ball 51 hadn't been drawn in 57 drawings, ball 1 in 56 and ball 34 in 52. Five balls (11, 13, 14, 21 and 65) show zero because they were drawn on October 7.

Long gaps sound unusual, but simple math says they're routine. Any given white ball misses a single drawing with probability 64/69, about 92.8%. The chance that it misses 30 drawings in a row is (64/69)³⁰, about 10.5%. With 69 balls, you'd expect about seven of them to be sitting on a gap of 30 or more at any moment; the chart shows six. The chance of a specific ball missing 57 straight drawings is about 1.4%, so across 69 balls you'd expect roughly one ball with a gap that long at any given time. A long gap does not make a number "due," and a gap of zero doesn't make it less likely to repeat.

A real example: the October 7, 2026 drawing

The most recent drawing in our data is a neat illustration. The white balls drawn on October 7, 2026 were 11, 13, 14, 21 and 65, with Powerball 19. That draw included 13, the coldest white ball since 2015, and 21, the hottest, in the same drawing. Both had the same 5-in-69 chance that night that every other ball had.

The gambler's fallacy, explained

The gambler's fallacy is the belief that past random outcomes change future ones, for example that a number which hasn't appeared in a while is "due," or that a hot number is "on a roll." Both versions are wrong for the same reason: the balls have no memory.

Before every drawing, the full set of 69 white balls and 26 red balls is in play. Whether ball 13 was drawn 77 times or 177 times, its chance in the next drawing is still 5 in 69 for the white drum. Every complete combination still has exactly a 1 in 292,201,338 chance, as our Powerball odds guide shows step by step.

A coin is a helpful comparison. If you flip a fair coin and get five heads in a row, the chance of heads on the sixth flip is still 50%. Over thousands of flips the percentage of heads drifts toward 50%, but not because the coin "corrects" itself. The early streak just gets diluted by a huge number of later flips.

Other patterns people track

Frequency and gaps aren't the only statistics on lottery sites.

Odd and even numbers. There are 35 odd and 34 even numbers from 1 to 69. Counting combinations shows that a drawing with three odd white balls should happen about 32.7% of the time, two odd about 31.7%, and all five odd only about 2.9%. In the 1,417 drawings since 2015, three odd balls showed up in 31.9% of drawings and two odd in 31.1%, close to theory. That's why "balanced" tickets look common: there are simply more balanced combinations. Each individual combination, balanced or not, still has the same 1 in 292,201,338 chance.

Common mistakes when reading frequency charts

• Mixing game formats. Including drawings before October 7, 2015 makes 60–69 look cold and pushes up the counts of lower numbers. Always check the start date.
• Mixing in Double Play. Double Play is a separate drawing with its own results. Combining the two doubles the number of draws without saying so.
• Cherry-picking the window. The "hottest" number over the last 30, 50 or 100 drawings changes depending on where you start counting. If a list doesn't say which drawings it covers, it isn't telling you much.
• Spending more because of a "streak." No frequency list improves your odds, so it's never a reason to buy extra plays. Set your budget first and let the numbers be trivia.

So is there any use for frequency data?

Honestly, very little for winning, but it can be interesting:

• Curiosity and trivia. It's fun to know which numbers have shown up most, as long as you treat it as history.
• Checking fairness. Analyses like the one above are one way to see that the draws behave like a random process.
• Picking numbers you like. If you enjoy playing "hot" or "cold" numbers, that's fine. It won't help or hurt your chances. It might change how many other people share your numbers if you ever win the jackpot, since some players do follow these lists.

What frequency data can't do is improve your odds. No list, chart or "system" can. Every prize amount and its odds are listed on the official Powerball prize chart, and our own Powerball prize chart guide explains each tier.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most common Powerball number?

Since the current format began on October 7, 2015, white ball 21 has been drawn most often (127 times in 1,417 drawings through October 7, 2026), and red Powerball 14 has been drawn most often (68 times). These are historical counts, not predictions.

Are cold numbers "due" to be drawn?

No. A number that hasn't appeared in a while has exactly the same chance as every other number in the next drawing. Believing otherwise is the gambler's fallacy.

Should I play hot numbers?

You can, but it won't change your odds. Every combination has the same 1 in 292,201,338 chance of winning the jackpot, whether its numbers are hot, cold or picked at random.

Why do some numbers appear more than others?

Random chance. Our simulation of a perfectly fair game produced the same kind of spread, with a top number near 126 appearances and a bottom number near 81, as the real draws did.

Which white ball has gone the longest without being drawn?

As of the October 7, 2026 drawing, white ball 51 had the longest current gap at 57 drawings, followed by 1 (56) and 34 (52). Gaps like these are normal in a fair game, and they don't make those numbers more likely next time.

Why only count drawings since 2015?

Because the ball ranges changed on October 7, 2015. Older drawings used 59 white balls and 35 red balls, so mixing them in would distort the counts.

The bottom line

Across 1,417 drawings, Powerball's hot and cold numbers look exactly like the output of a fair, random game. They're real history, but they carry no information about what comes next. If you play, play for fun, keep it within a budget you're comfortable losing, and remember that help is available at 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) if it ever stops being fun. Players must be 18 or older (older in some states).