The South African lottery service provider is a national service provider and each week there are tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) up for grabs.

The lotto, lotto plus, Powerball and Powerball plus are particularly popular due to the significantly high pay-outs, with amounts reaching up to R130 million for accumulated draws.

Many lucky number players like to choose their own numbers, rather than go with the random, computer generated quick pick and there is an option for them to see if their favourite numbers have historically come up more often than others. This is a quirk in all lotteries around the world, and the hot or cold numbers link provides interesting viewing.

The hot or cold lucky numbers are interesting statistics, and can be found on many blog platforms, especially discussing the South African lottery historical data and collated results, and these along with lucky number dream guides, can help you to choose your winning combinations.

A hot number denotes a ball/number that has fallen the most times, while a cold number is one that has come up the least amount of times. This data is collected over the years, ever since the national lottery was formed some 20 years ago. It also considers the latest new games such as Powerball Plus.

Some sites and blogs have gone further than stating the records of how many times a number has fallen and add in information like ball/numbers that are due to come up based on low frequency, as well as double and triple combinations.

There are numbers available for most common pair, most common triplets, most common successive numbers and most consecutive triplets.

Scientifically speaking the chances of numbers coming up are always equal, given the mathematical statistics involved, but there does seem to be a definite trend of hot or cold numbers.

In a South African context, the lotto has increased from 49 to 52 balls, meaning numbers 50,51 and 52 cannot be considered in historical data.

The hottest number in SA lotto history is 16, which has been drawn 267 times (as of October 24, 2019), while the coldest number is 37, which has been drawn 195 times. That is a large swing in favour of the hot number, and punters can take this information into consideration when picking numbers.

The second hottest number in SA 2 (261 times), followed by 8 (258 times), 30 (255 times), 23 (254 times) and 48 (251 times).

The coldest numbers in SA lottery history, in order of least: 37 (195 times), 10 (204 times) and 36 (207 times).

The numbers due is a calculation based on the last time a number was drawn and considers the fact it has not come up for a long period as a sign it is ‘due’ to fall.

As of 24 October 2019, the numbers 45, 30 and 19 are due to fall (on average 70 days since last appearance).

Most common (or hot) pairs in SA lotto history are 15 and 47 (40 times), 34 and 41 (38 times) and 2 and 23 (37 times).

Hot (common) triples to have come out of South Africa lottery play are 8, 26, 43 which have come up 10 times and 3, 30, 45 (9 times).

The hottest, or most common consecutive triplets in SA lotto history are 8, 9, 10 which have appeared together 6 times.

Searching the web for mathematical theories into why hot and cold numbers appear in lotteries across the world is not for the faint-hearted, or non-academically inclined. There are thousands of sites, blogs, tip platforms and other portals that try convincing punters why their strategy is the best.

The math behind lottery numbers is complex, theoretical and open to subjectivity.

The basic tenet is that it is completely random, and co-incidental. There are many theories which try show why some numbers are hot, and some cold and many punters use this method of playing lotteries. There could be something to some numbers coming up more frequently over a limited timespan but taken over thousands of years it should balance out. That is one theory anyway.

There are many players using quick pick, or birthdays/anniversaries but based on the reams of research on the internet there are a growing number of players who use various hot or cold numbers systems.