Perhaps your chosen numbers have recently been drawn, but there’s a very slim chance of that exact combination winning again within the next hundred or thousand years. Therefore, it may be wiser to pick numbers that haven’t yet hit a jackpot. Of course, each number technically has an equal chance in every draw, so drawing the same numbers again isn’t impossible. However, observations and the random nature of lotteries suggest that it’s rare for the same combination to repeat, making it more promising to choose numbers that haven’t won before.
In lottery games it’s difficult to find a combination that’s never matched at least three numbers, but there are combinations that have never hit four matches. In Powerball, the same idea applies: while most combinations have matched at least three numbers, some have never reached four. Some players believe it’s better to play with combinations that aren’t "worn out." Statistics show that, over enough draws, all combinations have an equal chance of appearing, just as every number will eventually get drawn.
The challenge is that there are a vast number of possible winning combinations. Powerball and Double Play have 292,201,338 possible combinations, while Mega Millions has 302,575,350. Assuming no combination is drawn twice, it would take approximately 1.8 million years to go through every Powerball combination with three draws per week, and about 2.9 million years for Mega Millions with two draws per week. Given that Powerball began 32 years ago, Double Play 3 years ago, and Mega Millions 28 years ago, it’s highly unlikely that any number combination has been drawn twice, but in tens of thousands of years, that may change.
Though, this is just theory, as jackpots continue to be won regularly. The only certainty in the lottery is that if you don’t play, you can’t win.
On the pages below, you can enter your chosen numbers to see if they’ve ever won a jackpot or any prize in the past. Good luck!