Cold numbers – to play or not to play? That is the dilemma I face every time I start my number reduction for an upcoming draw. 
First, let me define what I mean by “Cold” numbers. For me these are numbers that have not hit in at least the last 16 draws. Why 16? Because, with no duplicates, it would take approximately 8 draws for all 49 numbers to be drawn, so 16 draws gives each number two chances to be drawn.
This category of numbers does show up less often than other skip categories. In my Ontario 49 game the Cold numbers have not hit in 1,000 of the 1,690 draws to date, or 59%.
But why do they show less often? When I calculate the proportion of each of the skip categories to hit (number of hits per group ÷ by count of numbers falling in each group) the average always comes out to about 12.24% which is, not coincidentally, the proportion of numbers out of 49 drawn each game ( 6 ÷ 49 = 0.1224). What this tells me is that cold numbers hit less often because there are fewer of them.
This suggests a strategy for deciding whether or not to play the cold numbers. If there are few cold numbers they are less likely to hit than if the group is large. I tallied up the proportion of hits for each size of the Cold number group. So, for example, when there are 5 Cold numbers there was a hit from this group 50.9% of the time.
# Cold % Hits
0 ... 0.000
1 ... 0.112
2 ... 0.197
3 ... 0.264
4 ... 0.435
5 ... 0.509
6 ... 0.567
7 ... 0.629
8 ... 0.700
9 ... 0.440
So we can see in the table, the likelihood of a hit from the Cold numbers increases with the size of the group. On average there are 4 or 5 Cold numbers which gives us about a 50/50 probability of a hit. But, when there are 8 Cold numbers the likelihood of a hit rises to 70%. (I’m not sure how to explain the fall-off when there are 9 Cold numbers, but I suspect that it has to do with the small sample size – 9 Cold numbers has only happened 9 times).
So if there are few Cold numbers, you are relatively safe in eliminating them, while if there are more you are taking more of a chance eliminating this group. However, even if you guess wrong, you are likely to eliminate only 1 of the winning numbers as 88% of the hits from this group are for only 1 number.
Good luck!
First, let me define what I mean by “Cold” numbers. For me these are numbers that have not hit in at least the last 16 draws. Why 16? Because, with no duplicates, it would take approximately 8 draws for all 49 numbers to be drawn, so 16 draws gives each number two chances to be drawn.
This category of numbers does show up less often than other skip categories. In my Ontario 49 game the Cold numbers have not hit in 1,000 of the 1,690 draws to date, or 59%.
But why do they show less often? When I calculate the proportion of each of the skip categories to hit (number of hits per group ÷ by count of numbers falling in each group) the average always comes out to about 12.24% which is, not coincidentally, the proportion of numbers out of 49 drawn each game ( 6 ÷ 49 = 0.1224). What this tells me is that cold numbers hit less often because there are fewer of them.
This suggests a strategy for deciding whether or not to play the cold numbers. If there are few cold numbers they are less likely to hit than if the group is large. I tallied up the proportion of hits for each size of the Cold number group. So, for example, when there are 5 Cold numbers there was a hit from this group 50.9% of the time.
# Cold % Hits
0 ... 0.000
1 ... 0.112
2 ... 0.197
3 ... 0.264
4 ... 0.435
5 ... 0.509
6 ... 0.567
7 ... 0.629
8 ... 0.700
9 ... 0.440
So we can see in the table, the likelihood of a hit from the Cold numbers increases with the size of the group. On average there are 4 or 5 Cold numbers which gives us about a 50/50 probability of a hit. But, when there are 8 Cold numbers the likelihood of a hit rises to 70%. (I’m not sure how to explain the fall-off when there are 9 Cold numbers, but I suspect that it has to do with the small sample size – 9 Cold numbers has only happened 9 times).
So if there are few Cold numbers, you are relatively safe in eliminating them, while if there are more you are taking more of a chance eliminating this group. However, even if you guess wrong, you are likely to eliminate only 1 of the winning numbers as 88% of the hits from this group are for only 1 number.
Good luck!
