There are 1176 ways to make a pair of numbers from the first 6 drawn in the UK lotto. Some pairs are more easily spotted than others such as consecutives. A full listing of all pairs is available from a link lower down the page, meanwhile this part concentrates on consecutives.

When two numbers fall consecutively in the main ball set of a result, a consecutive pair or doublet is formed. The theoretical probability of at least one doublet such as 33, 34 in a lotto draw is 0.495, so on the face of it you would expect a consecutive pair to happen once in every two draws. In fact there are times when more than a single doublet occurs, either as two sets of doublets e.g 5, 6, 32, 33 or as a triplet such as in draw 583 when 1, 2, 3 came out in the main balls. Because of this there are more doublets than the probability of 0.495 would suggest. At the time of writing, draw 1164 there were 684 consecutive pairs (including those contained in triplets) which means that a doublet occurs on average once in 1.7 draws.

The actual frequency of ocurrence of consecutive pairs within the main numbers of the same draw, are displayed graphically below in ascending order, and in the table in number order. I would suggest that a syndicate sharing a large number of fixed lotto numbers should have lines which contain doublets in the proportion of 5 lines with doublets to every set of 13 lines.

The question arises, which ones if you are betting less than 48 lines ? For this you need to track when the pairs appear, and with a knowlege of how often, statistically they should appear, it is possible to make an assessment of when a doublet is overdue.
Well if you take the general case of any pair - (not necessarily consecutive) then there are 49 x 48/2 =1176 possible pairs. In every lotto draw 15 such pairs can be created from the 6 main balls. Whilst it is certain that 15 pairs will always appear, the probability of an identifiable specific consecutive pair is 15/1176 =0.01275. Another way of saying this is that the odds of a named consecutive pair are 1176/15 to 1 = 78.4 to 1 This is the expected (average) number of draws you would have to wait until a particular identifiable pair appeared. Incidentally this also applies to any specific non consecutive identifiable pair such as 38,41. Thus if a pair hasn't shown for 160 draws it is 160/78.4 = 2.04 times overdue.

In the Consecutives list You could do worse than assume that the pairs with Red 'times overdue' figures are due to come out soon. Pair freq - uency last drawn Draw No. ab- sence draws times over- due 1,2 24 1626 55 0.70 2,3 25 1642 39 0.50 3,4 15 1472 209 2.67 4,5 15 1538 143 1.82 5,6 21 1619 62 0.79 6,7 15 1636 45 0.57 7,8 10 1609 72 0.92 8,9 18 1599 82 1.05 9,10 20 1640 41 0.52 10,11 24 1407 274 3.49 11,12 25 1655 26 0.33 12,13 21 1658 23 0.29 13,14 15 1651 30 0.38 14,15 13 1674 7 0.09 15,16 22 1589 92 1.17 16,17 22 1593 88 1.12 17,18 18 1604 77 0.98 18,19 20 1629 52 0.66 19,20 15 1505 176 2.24 20,21 16 1559 122 1.56 21,22 15 1681 0 0.00 22,23 19 1617 64 0.82 23,24 27 1663 18 0.23 24,25 19 1663 18 0.23 25,26 26 1663 18 0.23 26,27 22 1659 22 0.28 27,28 25 1652 29 0.37 28,29 21 1641 40 0.51 29,30 20 1666 15 0.19 30,31 24 1632 49 0.63 31,32 30 1665 16 0.20 32,33 23 1643 38 0.48 33,34 25 1605 76 0.97 34,35 26 1677 4 0.05 35,36 20 1569 112 1.43 36,37 20 1461 220 2.81 37,38 25 1672 9 0.11 38,39 24 1681 0 0.00 39,40 27 1675 6 0.08 40,41 16 1598 83 1.06 41,42 23 1573 108 1.38 42,43 23 1673 8 0.10 43,44 33 1652 29 0.37 44,45 24 1645 36 0.46 45,46 15 1557 124 1.58 46,47 23 1637 44 0.56 47,48 15 1664 17 0.22 48,49 19 1671 10 0.13 From the Full set of pairs Most Drawn   Least Drawn 2,23 37 times 10,26 12 25,32 37   12,21 12 35,39 37   16,36 12 9,27 35   20,26 12 11,33 35   20,37 12 17,40 35   20,42 12 19,44 35   31,49 12 30,45 35   1,19 11 46,49 35   15,41 11 33,40 34   16,40 11 33,45 34   20,38 11 1,38 33   22,28 11 7,44 33   1,21 10 11,19 33   7,8 10 25,30 33   13,20 10 33,43 33   5,36 9 38,46 33   16,20 9 43,44 33   21,26 8 6,19 32   7,36 7    03-02-2012 13:12 List All the pairs

The table on the left lists overdue figures:- Not overdue (in Grey) Between once and twice overdue (Black) Between twice and 5 times overdue (puce) More than 5 times overdue (red bold) Here the 48 consecutive pairs are split over 2 graphs This shows how historically since the Lotto began, half of the consecutives have been missing for less than 60 draws, but some extremely long absences pushes the average up to 73.79 draws. If you look at ALL the pairs, not just consecutives this graph shows that most have been out between 11 and 12 times.

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