Powerball hot & cold numbers

What hot is measured against

Powerball draws five white balls from 1 to 69, so each draw hands out five slots across 69 numbers, and a number's fair share is one appearance in about every 14 draws (about 21.7 over 300 draws). A hot list is really the numbers that finished above that line, and a cold list the ones that finished below it. Over the short window on this page most numbers sit at zero, one or two, so a single appearance moves a number from one list toward the other.

Move the window, move the list

This page reads a short window, the latest draws only, and short windows are volatile: over 15 draws the fair share is about one appearance each, so whichever numbers land three times look spectacular while sitting a couple of appearances clear of average. Stretch the window across the full record and the opposite happens: the bars flatten, the leaders shed their lead, and the spread between busiest and quietest shrinks.

Short windows are volatile, long windows are smooth, and neither is the correct window. They answer different questions, so it is worth knowing which one a hot list is answering.

Cold numbers and longest gaps are not the same list

Cold is a count: the numbers with the fewest appearances in the window. Longest gap is a calendar: the number that has gone the most draws since it last appeared. They are different measurements and often name different numbers. A ball can post a low count and still have turned up last week, and a ball with a perfectly ordinary count can be sitting on the longest absence in the game.

The red Powerball keeps its own list

The red ball is a separate pool, one number from 1 to 26 per draw, so a red number's fair share is one appearance in every 26 draws against one in about 14 for a white ball, and the whole chart is compressed. A red ball three appearances above its share reads far more dramatically than a white ball three above its own. Both pools are counted apart on the Powerball statistics page.