Which zodiac sign would have won the most in the lottery?
The owl had some fun. We mapped each of the 49 lottery numbers to a zodiac sign and ran 70 years of draw data against it. The result is exactly as meaningful as it sounds. But entertaining.
The method (transparent)
The mapping is arbitrary. We could just as well have grouped the numbers by favourite colours or pizza toppings. Statistically the result would be just as meaningful. That is to say: not meaningful. Anyway, here's the owl's table:
| Zodiac sign | Lottery numbers | Birth window |
|---|---|---|
| Aries | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 21 Mar – 19 Apr |
| Taurus | 5, 6, 7, 8 | 20 Apr – 20 May |
| Gemini | 9, 10, 11, 12 | 21 May – 20 Jun |
| Cancer | 13, 14, 15, 16 | 21 Jun – 22 Jul |
| Leo | 17, 18, 19, 20 | 23 Jul – 22 Aug |
| Virgo | 21, 22, 23, 24 | 23 Aug – 22 Sep |
| Libra | 25, 26, 27, 28 | 23 Sep – 22 Oct |
| Scorpio | 29, 30, 31, 32 | 23 Oct – 21 Nov |
| Sagittarius | 33, 34, 35, 36 | 22 Nov – 21 Dec |
| Capricorn | 37, 38, 39, 40 | 22 Dec – 19 Jan |
| Aquarius | 41, 42, 43, 44 | 20 Jan – 18 Feb |
| Pisces | 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 | 19 Feb – 20 Mar |
Sharp-eyed readers may notice: 49 numbers don't divide evenly into 12. Pisces gets five numbers instead of four. We officially log this as a cosmic bonus for Pisces and subtract it from the final ranking. That's not quite right, but it's funnier this way.
The ranking (by frequency, 1955–today)
| # | Sign | Hits | Variance from mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pisces ⭐ | 3,987 | +0.2 % |
| 2 | Scorpio | 3,241 | +1.8 % |
| 3 | Cancer | 3,219 | +1.1 % |
| 4 | Taurus | 3,204 | +0.6 % |
| 5 | Leo | 3,198 | +0.4 % |
| 6 | Aries | 3,192 | +0.3 % |
| 7 | Libra | 3,185 | +0.0 % |
| 8 | Capricorn | 3,178 | −0.2 % |
| 9 | Aquarius | 3,170 | −0.4 % |
| 10 | Sagittarius | 3,168 | −0.5 % |
| 11 | Gemini | 3,151 | −1.0 % |
| 12 | Virgo | 3,128 | −1.8 % |
The spread between the „strongest" and „weakest" sign (Pisces, bonus removed, vs Virgo) is under 2 per cent. That's noise, not signal. Statistics expects this when each number is drawn equally often over the long run. Which it is.
Which sign had the biggest hot-cold spread?
More interesting than the per-frequency ranking is the spread within a zodiac sign. Among the four (or five for Pisces) numbers of each sign, there's a "hot" and a "cold" one. Where is the gap biggest, and does it tell us anything?
| Rank | Sign | Hottest number | Coldest number | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pisces | 49 (657×) | 45 (546×) | 111 |
| 2 | Taurus | 6 (672×) | 8 (578×) | 94 |
| 3 | Virgo | 22 (634×) | 21 (572×) | 62 |
| 4 | Libra | 26 (647×) | 28 (586×) | 61 |
| 5 | Gemini | 11 (645×) | 12 (585×) | 60 |
| 6 | Cancer | 16 (609×) | 13 (553×) | 56 |
| 7 | Sagittarius | 33 (641×) | 34 (588×) | 53 |
| 8 | Scorpio | 32 (641×) | 30 (596×) | 45 |
| 9 | Leo | 19 (628×) | 20 (593×) | 35 |
| 10 | Aquarius | 43 (633×) | 44 (603×) | 30 |
| 11 | Capricorn | 38 (623×) | 39 (597×) | 26 |
| 12 | Aries | 3 (629×) | 2 (611×) | 18 |
Looks dramatic? It isn't. Even the largest sign-spread sits in the corridor that the math predicts as pure random noise across 5,000 draws per number (about ±23 draws standard deviation). Distribution without signal, by the textbook.
The owl briefly tried being an astrologer. Experiment over. Result: the stars have no influence on the lottery ticket. Who'd have thought.
What this actually means
Lottery draws are memoryless. A number is never „due" just because it hasn't been drawn for weeks. A zodiac sign is never „lucky" or „cursed", whatever the table above suggests. This thinking error even has a name: the gambler's fallacy. What was drawn before doesn't influence what comes next. At all.
That's also why there are no real „lucky numbers" in the lottery. There are only numbers you have personal meaning attached to. Which is fine, as long as you don't start staking more money because you believe in that meaning.
If you're more interested in the real numbers
We've calculated, for every German Lotto draw since 1955, how unlikely the jackpot really is and what would have happened if you'd put the money into an ETF instead. Both without stars, both with data: