How Our AI Picks Powerball Numbers

1. Service Overview

Powerball draws five white balls (1–69) plus one red Powerball (1–26). We generate five recommended tickets after every draw using weighted sampling, then publish both the picks and the performance history.

• Output: 5 suggested tickets per draw (5 white balls + 1 Powerball)
• Inputs: draw numbers, results, jackpots, and Power Play multipliers from official Powerball feeds
• Cadence: refresh automatically after each Mon/Wed/Sat draw (U.S. Eastern time)

2. Data Pipeline

2.1 Collection

• PowerballAPIClient retrieves draw records from official endpoints and resilient mirrors.
• Historical backfills run automatically when we detect missing jackpots or multipliers.

2.2 Evaluation

• When draws settle, we grade every recommended ticket (match count, Powerball hit, prize tier, estimated payout).
• Results are exported to history.json so the site can display transparency badges instantly.

3. Feature Engineering

• White-ball weights blend lifetime frequency with recency decay to surface “hot” segments.
• Powerball weights are tracked separately to highlight red-ball streaks.
• Range aggregates (01–14, 15–28, …) feed the analysis dashboard and serve as sanity checks.
• Jackpot/multiplier metadata is stored in millions for consistent reporting.

Weights are rebuilt after every refresh so new draws immediately influence the next batch of picks.

4. Recommendation Strategy

1. Load the most recent 200 draws and build weight maps for white balls and the Powerball.
2. When sampling, reduce the weight of already-picked white balls (×0.72) to diversify each ticket.
3. Apply a similar reduction (×0.65) to the Powerball weight so the last slot rotates more often.
4. Store average weights as scores so we can benchmark new strategy versions against historical results.

The first few tickets lean toward trending numbers, while the later tickets intentionally spread out risk.

5. Limitations & Notes

• Powerball is still a random draw — the model cannot guarantee long-term advantage.
• Official data feeds sometimes lag or change format; when that happens the crawler backfills missing fields.
• These picks are for entertainment and transparency; they are not financial advice.