Did you know the average Powerball jackpot for 2022 was well over $100 million? If you win the Powerball, you could be set for life. Even though you’d likely have to pay a hefty amount of taxes on your win, you’d still be taking home a life-changing amount of money.
If you’ve been a long-time Powerball lottery player, then you’ve probably been curious about the most common numbers in Powerball drawings.
You probably also want to know about some of the best tips that could make you more likely to win a Powerball prize, be it the non-jackpot prizes or the lump sum prize payout for the massive jackpot amount.
From Power Play multipliers and other play options, you may think the Powerball is more complicated than most other lottery games, but the truth is, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to play Powerball (and potentially win).
That’s why we’ve put together this guide. Once you have all the information you need about the most common Powerball numbers and other strategies you can use to up your chances of winning, you can be confident that you’ve tipped the odds ever so slightly in your favor.
How the Powerball Lottery Works
Before we get into the strategies you can use to succeed, we’ll review how the Powerball lottery works. This way, you can understand what your odds of snagging a winning ticket are. In terms of the jackpot odds, your chance of winning the Powerball grand prize is 1 in 292,201,338.
These may seem like comically low overall odds of winning, and they are, but keep in mind that someone is bound to win the jackpot eventually.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that these borderline-ridiculous odds are why jackpots get so big. If they were easy to win, jackpots wouldn’t be worth very much.
On the other hand, jackpots might not be as hard to win as the odds suggest. Considering that there are lottery jackpot winners who win multiple times, there may be strategies that are effective.
Playing the lottery is a form of gambling. Just like card or dice games featured in casinos, wise and poor strategies are involved. The difference is a matter of control.
Basically, in the Powerball, there are two drums that have numbered balls in them. Then, the balls are drawn publicly, one at a time. The goal is to guess which randomly selected numbers will get drawn.
The first drum has 69 balls in it. From this drum, the five winning numbers are chosen. The second drum has 26 balls in it. The Powerball is drawn from the second of these drums.
If you have a Powerball ticket that matches all of the winning numbers pulled out from the first drum and matches the Powerball that is pulled out of the second drum, you win the jackpot! If you only have some of the winning numbers, you can still win a generous amount of money, anywhere between $4 and $1 million.
The Most Common Main Numbers
One of the most common strategies used to try to enhance your odds of winning the Powerball lottery is to choose the most common winning Powerball numbers. These best Powerball numbers have been pulled out from the first drum many times more than expected.
The total pool of main numbers in the Powerball lottery has changed over the years. The first drawing results only featured a pool of 45 numbers.
The pool size increased a few times over the years, with the most recent changes coming in 2015. During this change, the number of numbers in the draw game increased to 69.
Here are the most frequently drawn numbers since these changes:
- 61 (drawn 82 times)
- 32 (drawn 80 times)
- 63 (drawn 74 times)
- 21 (drawn 73 times)
- 36 (drawn 73 times)
- 69 (drawn 73 times)
- 39 (drawn 72 times)
- 23 (drawn 71 times)
- 59 (drawn 71 times)
- 62 (drawn 71 times)
If you’re deciding which numbers to choose and feel that past winning numbers might be a key to future winning numbers, then these Powerball numbers should definitely be on your list.
The Most Common Powerball Numbers
If you like to be superstitious when you choose your lottery numbers, then you might want to use the strategy of choosing some of the most common Powerball numbers.
Each drawing features a single Powerball, often the difference between winning a million dollars or the jackpot. In the old days, the Powerball pool ranged from 1 to 45.
Unlike the main numbers, the Powerball pool has steadily reduced over time. The most recent changes were also made in 2015, as the number of Powerballs lowered to 26.
Since then, these are the most commonly drawn Powerball numbers:
- 24 (drawn 45 times)
- 18 (drawn 42 times)
- 4 (drawn 36 times)
- 10 (drawn 36 times)
- 21 (drawn 36 times)
The Overdue Numbers
Even though you may think it’s a smart idea to go for popular numbers, overdue numbers will eventually get picked, too. Another popular strategy is to pick as many "overdue" numbers as possible.
The idea is to choose the numbers that aren’t drawn as often since they’re “due” to be drawn. Of course, previous drawings have no bearing on future drawings.
However, these numbers are more likely to be less popular among people entering the lottery, which means that if you win even some of the numbers, you won’t have to split your earnings with as many people.
Here are the main numbers that have been drawn the least often since 2015:
- 34 (drawn 46 times)
- 26 (drawn 46 times)
- 13 (drawn 46 times)
- 49 (drawn 48 times)
- 46 (drawn 49 times)
- 4 (drawn 49 times)
- 35 (drawn 50 times)
- 24 (drawn 50 times)
- 43 (drawn 51 times)
- 9 (drawn 51 times)
Here are the Powerball numbers that have been drawn the least in the same time frame:
- 23 (drawn 23 times)
- 15 (drawn 25 times)
- 16 (drawn 26 times)
- 12 (drawn 26 times)
- 7 (drawn 28 times)
Additional Strategies
Charting out the numbers is one of the most popular ways to make Powerball selections. You can see the logic behind picking both “hot” numbers that get selected often and “cold” numbers that may get pulled soon.
Whatever you choose, you’ll likely feel a little more confident about your numbers for the next drawing.
In addition to choosing the right Powerball numbers, there are additional strategies you can use to make your chances of winning the Powerball lottery higher.
Since previous drawings have no impact on future drawings, these strategies will likely have little impact on your overall odds.
Buy More Tickets
The more tickets you buy, the higher your chances will be of winning the Powerball lottery. After all, you’ll have more number combinations. So, even if one of your Powerball lottery number series loses, another one might win.
If this is the strategy you plan on using, then you should budget accordingly. You shouldn’t be using the money you’d spend on important things such as rent, groceries, or your children’s education.
But if you have additional money to spend and enjoy entering the Powerball lottery, then this is one of the best ways to heighten your chances of winning.
Use Quick Picks
Another strategy that can work is to use Quick Picks. When you do this, you aren’t selecting the numbers at all. Instead, a computer does it for you. There might be something to this trick, considering that 70% of Powerball winners have been Quick Picks.
This strategy is popular among winners who have won more than once, so it’s worth trying out. Besides, nothing beats the convenience of using Quick Pick.
You don’t need to do any research about previous numbers and create convoluted strategies for future drawings. You just ask the lottery retailer for a Quick Pick, hand over the cash, and leave with your ticket(s).
Brushing your teeth in the morning takes longer than using this method.
Use Multi-Draw
You can also use multi-draw so that you’re playing the same numbers in different draws. You can play in up to 26 drawings at the same time. If you feel lucky on a particular date (like your birthday, for example), then you can schedule the multi-draws to happen on that day.
This improves your chances of winning because you'll be playing Powerball more often. Even if you don’t win in one draw, you might win in another.
After all, your “lucky” numbers shouldn’t suddenly stop being lucky just because they weren’t drawn one time. If you genuinely believe your chosen numbers are fortunate, then multi-draw will let you know if you’re right.
Joining a Lottery Pool
Another option is to join a lottery pool. If you and your family, a group of friends, or a group of work colleagues all play the lottery at the same time, the chances of one of you winning is higher because there are more of you. When one of you wins, that person can share their winnings with the entire group.
Even if you don’t win the entire Powerball winning amount, you’ll still win a lot of money this way. Considering that the Powerball winning amount for January 20, 2021, was worth $730 million, this would be $73 million each if split among ten winners.
If you won $73 million, you’d still feel like a winner, even if you’re sharing the total amount with other winners. This is one of those cases where “everybody wins!”
Don’t Forget About Your Winnings
It may seem impossible to forget about your winnings, but it can happen if you play the Powerball lottery often. Back in 2011, an unclaimed lottery ticket that was worth $300,000 ended up being donated to schools. Can you imagine this happening to you?
To avoid forgetting about your winnings, have a specific place where you store your lottery tickets so that you don’t lose them if you win. Additionally, put alerts on your phone and note in your calendar when the drawing is.
If you’re not sure about your number, you can go to a place that sells them to check your ticket. You can also use a lottery app to keep everything organized.
Once you do win, you have two options to collect your prize amount. You can take it in annuity payments over a certain amount of years or the cash option (usually substantially less), which pays the cash value of the pot in a lump sum.
Check Out Discarded Lottery Tickets
This isn’t technically a way for you to win the lottery, but you might still get some lottery winnings this way. If someone has discarded their lottery ticket, they might not realize that there are some winnings they could collect with it.
Because they were frustrated about losing the big lottery, they might have thrown the ticket away. But if they have any winning numbers, they’re actually missing out on some money. As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
In this case, it could be a big treasure. Just make sure that you claim the prize before the ticket expires. There is a shelf life for lottery tickets shorter than you might think.
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