Number 4

In New York Lotto under the 6/59 + 1/55 · Jan 2010 – Oct 2010 rules — 83 draws, 6 from 1–59 (an earlier era).

11times drawn · chance expected 8 +0.93σ

4draws waiting · a wait this long: 72% for any number

7.8average wait between appearances · chance says 9.8

23longest completed wait · 63% chance of one at least that long

4 is drawn as often as chance explains

Drawn 11 times in 83 draws against 8.4 expected, +0.93σ. Each draw is independent: after 4 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.

Number 4, draw by draw

Drawn 11 times in 83 draws · average wait 7.8 draws · longest completed wait 23 · waiting 4 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 4 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 smallest8 · chance 8.4
2nd smallest3 · chance 2.5
3rd smallest0 · chance 0.2
4th smallest0 · chance 0.0
5th smallest0 · chance 0.0
6th smallest0 · chance 0.0

Every position’s lane →

The company it keeps

Seen most often with these — chance gives every partner about 0.9 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

56 23 28 30 43 3

Never drawn alongside 21 of the other 58 numbers; chance expects about 22 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 4 is picked about 1.34× as often as an indifferent choice — 6th most popular of 59. 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
Numbers 1–12 — day and month overlap ×1.10

The model and its sources → · What people believe about 4 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2010-10-02	3	1st	4 42 47 55 56 57
2010-09-22	23	1st	4 18 21 30 44 59
2010-07-03	1	1st	4 7 19 34 41 56

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: 4 is drawn with probability 6/59 tonight whatever it did last week.