Number 5

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

6times drawn · chance expected 8 −0.89σ

20draws waiting · a wait this long: 13% for any number

9.2average wait between appearances · chance says 9.8

22longest completed wait · 43% chance of one at least that long

5 is drawn as often as chance explains

Drawn 6 times in 83 draws against 8.4 expected, −0.89σ. Each draw is independent: after 20 draws away it is exactly as likely tonight as a number drawn yesterday.

Number 5, draw by draw

Drawn 6 times in 83 draws · average wait 9.2 draws · longest completed wait 22 · waiting 20 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 5 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 smallest3 · chance 4.1
2nd smallest2 · chance 1.7
3rd smallest1 · 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 0.5 shared draws, and the leaders are simply the ones that came out ahead this time.

3 4 16 43 56 6

Never drawn alongside 33 of the other 58 numbers; chance expects about 35 such strangers by now. Every pair →

How many people play it

Under the crowd model, 5 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 5 →

Every draw it appeared in

Date	Wait	Position	The draw
2010-08-07	2	1st	5 16 29 42 46 51
2010-07-31	4	1st	5 18 26 41 49 56
2010-07-17	22	1st	5 9 15 16 34 48

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