How ordinary does a Lotto Max draw look?
Across 1,279 Lotto Max draws the numbers have sat 37.42 away from the evenly spaced positions chance centres them on, where chance predicts 37.52.
That is the record up to draw 1279, drawn on 2026-10-16. The two differ by 0.10 per draw, the record being the more even of the pair. Across the whole record that comes to 0.21 standard errors. Single draws are a different matter. The most even draw on record measures 6.50, where chance predicts 0.19 draws that even across a record this long, and the most lopsided measures 115.50, where it predicts 0.59.
What was measured one figure for a whole draw
Sort a draw from smallest to largest. Chance does not centre those numbers on the middle of the pool, it centres them on seven evenly spaced positions: the smallest number is centred near the bottom, the largest near the top, and the rest spread between them. At a pool of 52 those positions are 6.63, 13.25, 19.88, 26.50, 33.13, 39.75 and 46.38. The measure on this page is the total distance from them, added up over all seven numbers, and it is one figure that reacts to everything that makes a draw look strange at a glance: numbers bunched together, numbers crowded into one end of the pool, a gap wide enough to swallow a decade.
The floor and the ceiling are worth knowing before any figure is read. Rounding those positions to whole numbers gives 07132027334046, and no draw the pool allows comes closer: that one measures 2.00. Two of the 133,784,560 draws the pool allows reach the floor, since a position that lands on a half can be rounded either way. At the other end the ceiling is 157.50, which is what the pool taken whole at either end comes to, 01020304050607 or 46474849505152. So the measure runs from 2.00 to 157.50 at this pool, and a predicted 39.39 sits much nearer the floor than the ceiling. There is far more room above the prediction than below it, which is worth remembering whenever a draw looks extreme.
The prediction is not one figure for the whole record. This game has drawn from three pool sizes, 49, 50 and 52 numbers, and a wider pool spreads the positions further apart and leaves more room to be far from them. The predicted distance per draw runs from 36.96 at the narrowest pool to 39.39 at the widest, so every figure on this page is worked out at each draw's own pool and then added up. Today's prediction applied backwards would turn a format change into a trend. The spread of the measure is exact rather than estimated: counting up the pool one number at a time gives the share of draws at every possible distance, with no sampling and no normal curve standing in for one.
The record 1,279 draws, 10 rows
Red marks a figure outside the range ordinary variation produces
| Where the draw sat against its own prediction | Chance | Draws |
|---|---|---|
| More than 2.0 below | 0.00330.0003% | 00% |
| 1.5 to 2.0 below | 12.50.9795% | 11-0.43 SE |
| 1.0 to 1.5 below | 15512.10% | 148-0.58 SE |
| 0.5 to 1.0 below | 30423.74% | 310+0.42 SE |
| 0.0 to 0.5 below | 27421.46% | 261-0.91 SE |
| 0.0 to 0.5 above | 20415.92% | 228+1.87 SE |
| 0.5 to 1.0 above | 13410.51% | 142+0.69 SE |
| 1.0 to 1.5 above | 82.36.44% | 72-1.18 SE |
| 1.5 to 2.0 above | 53.94.21% | 46-1.10 SE |
| More than 2.0 above | 59.54.65% | 61+0.20 SE |
Each row is a slice of how far a draw sat from its own draw's prediction, measured in standard errors of that prediction rather than in distance, so draws from different pool sizes can sit in the same table without the eras being ranked against each other. The predictions add up to 1,279 exactly, which is the number of draws read, so the table compares the shape of the record against the shape chance predicts rather than its size. One row carries no range: its prediction is under five draws, too thin for a standard error to mean anything, so no reading and no red mark are given for it. The bands measure single draws against their own prediction. The red marks measure the row counts against theirs, which is a different question asked of the same table.
The two end rows are open: they gather everything beyond 2.0 standard errors in either direction rather than a slice of fixed width, so they are not in the running for the busiest row and are read on their own. Among the rows of fixed width the busiest is 0.5 to 1.0 below, with 310 draws, and chance puts the same row first with 304.
Chance also leans to one side of itself. It puts 58.28% of draws below the prediction and 41.72% above, because the measure has a hard floor and a long way to run upwards: the average is pulled up by the rare lopsided draw, so a draw more even than the prediction is the ordinary case. The record splits 730 below and 549 above.
The furthest row from its own prediction sits 1.87 standard errors away. Reading nine rows at once, chance alone puts 0.56 of them that far out, so the number of rows read does not by itself account for it. Even so, no row reaches the mark at 2.0 standard errors, so nothing in the table is printed in red.
At the ends of the record, here are the draws that came closest to the evenly spaced positions.
And here are the draws that sat furthest from them.
Nothing in those two lists is printed in red, and that is deliberate rather than an omission. These draws were picked out for being the extremes, so marking them as extreme would only repeat how they were chosen. The honest reading is a pair of counts. One draw came within 6.50 of the positions, where chance predicts 0.19 across the whole record, and chance gives about 17 chances in a hundred that a record this long holds at least one. At the other end one draw reached 115.50, where chance predicts 0.59 and gives about 45 chances in a hundred of at least one. Draws are independent of one another, so both of those readings are exact.
The recent stretch last 100 draws
That is a short enough stretch to move about on its own. The opening stretch of the record measured 38.32 per draw against a predicted 36.96, and the recent one measures 38.24 against 38.66. The recent figure sits 0.42 below its prediction, or 0.24 standard errors. The two draws named beside it are the extremes of that stretch, picked out for being extreme, so neither carries a red mark either.
Distance per draw, one point per block of 20 draws
result for the blockrange ordinary variation allowsoutside that range
Oldest block on the left, newest on the right. The band is what chance predicts for those same draws, worked out from each draw's own pool, so a block that straddles a change of pool size is not read as a trend. A point outside the band is marked. No point sits outside the band here. Across ten blocks, chance alone puts 0.46 of them outside.
Applied to this draw draw 1279 · 2026-10-16
Draw 1279 was 01111336414351 from a pool of 52, and it measures 40.00 against a prediction of 39.39. That is 0.61 above the prediction, or 0.03 standard errors. Chance puts 40.61% of draws at least this far from the positions and 59.39% closer than it.
Of the 1,279 draws read here, 802 were more even than this one. Another seven draws measured exactly the same.
The fourth number did the most to the total, sitting 9.50 from its own position. For comparison, the most even draw this pool allows is 07132027334046, which measures 2.00. It has never been drawn, and the closest the record has come to the positions is 6.50.
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