Number 23

In Lightning Lotto under the 5/49 · since May 2026 rules — 139 draws, 5 from 1–49.

16times drawn · chance expected 14 +0.51σ

3draws waiting · a wait this long: 81% for any number

9.0average wait between appearances · chance says 9.8

20longest completed wait · 87% chance of one at least that long

23 is drawn as often as chance explains

Drawn 16 times in 139 draws against 14.2 expected, +0.51σ. Each draw is independent: after 3 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.

Number 23, draw by draw

Drawn 16 times in 139 draws · average wait 9.0 draws · longest completed wait 20 · waiting 3 draws now

a completed wait — darker is longer the wait still running — a lower bound, not a finished gap

Where it lands in a sorted draw

Sort a draw and 23 has a favourite seat — chance gives a small number the low positions more often. That is the shape of sorting, not of the machine.

1st smallest2 · chance 1.2
2nd smallest5 · chance 4.7
3rd smallest6 · chance 6.2
4th smallest3 · chance 3.3
5th smallest0 · chance 0.6

Every position’s lane →

The company it keeps

Seen most often with these — chance gives every partner about 1.3 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

34 15 36 9 13 27

Never drawn alongside 15 of the other 48 numbers; chance expects about 13 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 23 is picked about 1.22× as often as an indifferent choice — 15th most popular of 49. That changes nothing about whether it comes up, and everything about how many ways a jackpot on it would be shared.

Numbers 1–31 — the birthday zone ×1.22

The model and its sources → · What people believe about 23 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2026-10-08	10	3rd	9 15 23 27 39
2026-09-28	1	4th	7 12 13 23 46
2026-09-27	20	2nd	8 23 27 34 46
2026-09-07	5	3rd	6 15

What this cannot tell you

Nothing here predicts the next draw. A number’s history is a record of a fair machine’s past, and the machine keeps none of it: 23 is drawn with probability 5/49 tonight whatever it did last week.