On the surface, 23 doesn’t look like a remarkable number. There are 24 hours in a day, not 23. The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is not 23 (it’s 42), and 23 is so, so…so odd!

Why then is today’s post about 23? That’s the number of times the {3-2-1} Pattern has played in Mega Millions. This Pattern may not play often in this lottery, but when it showed up this past Tuesday, it made an impact. The grand prize went unclaimed yet again and rose to $130 million.

General Lottery Analysis

The {3-2-1} Pattern of January 21, 2020 was thanks to winning numbers 16, 18, 29, 31, 37, and MB 8.

There have now been 534 Mega Millions drawings and this Pattern has played 4.31% of the time. We last saw the {3-2-1} Pattern October 22^nd, 2019.

The [2-3-1] General Order, now with 11 appearances, has played in 47.8% of the 23 drawings where {3-2-1} was the winning Pattern. Once all 534 drawings have been taken into consideration, this General Order has played 2.06% of the time. Prior to Tuesday night, the [2-3-1] General Order played December 21^st, 2018.

Now with two appearances, the 0 2 3 0 0 1 Specific Order has played in 18.2% of the 11 drawings where the General Order was [2-3-1]. This Specific Order has also played in 8.70% of the 23 drawings where {3-2-1} was the winning Pattern and in 0.37% of all 534 drawings. The 0 2 3 0 0 1 Specific Order made its first appearance in the September 12^th, 2014 drawing.

Three-Number Combination(s)

An uncommon Pattern left a couple of repeating Three-Number Combinations in its wake:

• 29, 31, 37 (Debuted February 18^th, 2014)
• 16, 29, 31 (Debuted January 9^th, 2018)

It’s not likely that the {3-2-1} Pattern will make an encore in Mega Millions. Still, there’s the matter of the growing jackpot. Will Friday night’s results make the jackpot grow again?