Hottest and Coldest Powerball Numbers of 2019
Friday January 10th 2020What were the biggest Powerball numbers trends of 2019? We've crunched the data to find the most interesting Powerball statistics, including the hottest, coldest, and most overdue numbers to inspire your 2020 picks.
Hottest Powerball Numbers
Over the course of the 104 Powerball draws held in 2019, 520 main numbers (white balls) were drawn.
- The year's winning-est number was 14, which was drawn 14 times.
- Just missing out on the top spot, number 6 was drawn 13 times.
- Third most common was a tie between 32 and 66, which were drawn 12 times each.
Dig deeper with the table below, which shows the 10 most commonly drawn main numbers of the year:
| Number | 14 | 6 | 32 | 66 | 5 | 8 | 23 | 53 | 59 | 35 |
| Times Drawn | 14 | 13 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 10 |
The most common Powerball number (red ball) in 2019 was 21, which was drawn eight times. Coming in second place, number 3 was drawn seven times.
What about the hottest Powerball couple of 2019? Many players like to know the most common pair of numbers - two numbers that have been drawn together the most often. In 2019 the most-drawn pair was 12 and 21, which were drawn together four times.
Will these numbers continue their winning streak this year? Or is it time for them to be replaced with cold numbers we haven't seen much of recently? Keep an eye on the Powerball results to find out.
Coldest Powerball Numbers
These are the numbers that got the least love in 2019, being drawn the fewest times. But if you subscribe to the idea of hot and cold numbers, these least-common digits could be ready to make a roaring comeback in 2020.
- Three numbers tied for the dubious honor of being the least-drawn: 33, 40 and 58 were each drawn only three times in the year's 104 draws.
- Only slightly more popular was 11, which was drawn four times.
- Completing the top (bottom?) roundup, these numbers were each drawn five times: 9, 13, 31, 54, 55 and 62.
| Number | 33 | 40 | 58 | 11 | 9 | 13 | 31 | 54 | 55 | 62 |
| Times Drawn | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
The least-common Powerball (red ball) numbers last year were 5 and 9 - each of them was drawn just once.
Most Overdue Powerball Numbers
In the category of numbers that have gone the longest since last being drawn, there's a clear winner! Number 49 was drawn on June 15 but didn't resurface for more than six months. That made it 2019's most overdue number by a large margin. Each number should be drawn every seven weeks on average, so six months is a very long dry spell.
However, true to the concept of overdue numbers, 49 made a comeback in the first draw of 2020 on January 1. Could it even be on course to become a hot number this year? Time will tell!
Power Play Frequency
Power Play is a number that's drawn alongside the main Powerball numbers and multiplies non-jackpot prizes. If add the Power Play option to your ticket, any prize you win below the jackpot is multiplied by the Power Play number.
For example, a 2X Power Play means a second place $1 million Match 5 win for matching the five main numbers is now worth $2 million.
The Power Play goes up to 10X, so it can make a huge difference to the value of a prize. On August 28 the 10X Power Play was drawn for the first time in 2019, boosting the prize of a lucky player in Arizona from $50,000 to $500,000! Over 55,000 players also won $40 just for matching the Powerball in the same draw.
The table below shows how many times each of the five Power Play numbers showed up in draws in 2019, starting with the most common. The Frequency column shows that the number appeared every X draws. For example, the 2X Power Play appeared once every 1.89 draws. The right hand column shows the odds of each multiplier being drawn.
| Power Play | Times Drawn | Frequency | Odds* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2X | 54 | 1.89 | 1 in 1.79 |
| 3X | 35 | 2.91 | 1 in 3.31 |
| 4X | 7 | 14.57 | 1 in 14.33 |
| 5X | 6 | 17 | 1 in 21.5 |
| 10X | 2 | 33.5 | 1 in 43 |
| *These odds apply when the 10X Power Play is available; odds vary slightly when it is not | |||
It's important to realize that the 10X Power Play is only available when the Powerball jackpot stands at $150 million or below, which explains its low number of appearances. Last year the jackpot was at $150 million or below in 67 out of 104 drawings (just under two-thirds).
The odds of the 10X Power Play being drawn are 1 in 43 when it's available. Therefore, over 67 draws the odds are that it should appear 1.56 times. Rounded up to the closest whole number, the 10X Power Play's two appearances last year were smack bang where the odds predicted.
The same is true for the other Power Play numbers, which were all drawn approximately the number of times they should have been according to the odds. The 5X was a bit of an outlier, since it showed up once every 17 draws, while the odds said it should only appear once in 21 draws.
Why Some Numbers Are More or Less Common Than Others
Every Powerball draw is entirely random, so each number has an equal chance of being chosen. Each draw "starts fresh" - the results of past drawings do not affect future ones. But according to probability, each number should appear approximately once every 14 draws.
However, this pattern will only be apparent over a very long timeframe of thousands of draws. In the meantime, some numbers will appear more or less than others. That means some numbers will have hot streaks and be drawn more often over a period of time, while others will go cold and be drawn less often for a while.
There have been about 3,000 Powerball draws to date, and over this time you can see the number frequencies becoming more balanced than they seem in the short term. However, the most "popular" number has still been drawn 50 more times than the "least popular"!
How often a number has been drawn over the long term also depends on when it was introduced into the game. The numbers 1-45 inclusive have been in play since Powerball started in 1992. Other numbers were launched later and so they've also been drawn less often overall.