There’s a $750 million Powerball jackpot. Here’s what numbers are drawn most frequently

With no jackpot lottery tickets being sold in California for this weekend’s Powerball draw, the next big winner could be taking $750 million home with the right numbers.

But are some numbers better than others? Statisticians will tell you no – all lottery numbers are drawn randomly – but the state lottery tracks how frequently numbers are selected.

For Powerball lotteries, the most commonly chosen numbers since October 2015 were 69, 64, 32, 28 and 23, in that order. The most frequently selected powerball numbers were 24, 21 and 9.

The least popular number was 35, which was only drawn 12 times in more than three years, while 14 was drawn as a power number a mere eight times in the same period.

For reference, 69 was drawn 40 times and 24 was drawn as a power number 21 times out of a total of 362 draws.

In 2016, Americans spent more than $72 billion on lottery tickets, according to the United States Census Bureau. The average American spends roughly $220 on lottery tickets yearly.

Saturday night’s Powerball was the seventh-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history at $638.8 million. The numbers were 24, 25, 52, 60, 66. The Powerball number was 5. It was the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot, and about a third the size of the largest lottery prize of all time, a $1.5 billion Powerball that was won by three tickets on Jan. 13, 2016.

The California Lottery estimates the upcoming $750 million Powerball jackpot to be worth about $465.5 million in cash after federal taxes. Numbers are scheduled to be drawn Wednesday evening.

California is one of 10 states to exempt state income tax on lottery winnings.

If you win less than $600, you can turn in your winning ticket at a lottery retailer in exchange for cash, according to Mega Millions’ website. If you win over $600, download a claim form from the California Lottery and deliver it to any lottery district office or mail it to 730 N. 10th St., Sacramento, CA, 95811.

This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 3:43 PM.