Live in Delaware and like the number 61? Your chances in Powerball are better than most

Dedicated lottery players may wish to consider a move to Delaware - and pick the number 61 - if they want to be in the chance of winning the jackpot.

A new study by Lottery Geeks found the First State has the highest proportion of lottery winners of any US state.

And separate research has unveiled the numbers which are the most likely - and the least likely - to be selected in the Powerball. 

Experts from gambling site CSGO analyzed the most commonly drawn numbers in over 950 drawings between 2015 and 2023. 

It found the notoriously unlucky number 13 was the least common, while the number 61 was discovered to be the 'luckiest' number, having been picked 90 times during the period.

The findings come as the grand prize for Saturday's Powerball drawing currently stands at an estimated $935 million - the fifth largest in game history. 

The cash payout, should you win this Easter weekend, is about $450 million. 

Powerball is one of the most popular lottery games in the US - with over 181 million Americans entering every year. 

The largest ever Powerball jackpot, in November 2022, was advertised as $2.04 billion. 

According to Powerball, the overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.87, based on a $2 play. The odds of winning the grand prize are 1 in 292,201,338. 

The game involves players picking five main numbers between 1 and 69 and one 'Powerball number' between 1 and 26. 

In order to work out the 'luckiest' numbers, the study last year by CSGOluck.com, took into account the most commonly selected numbers in the main part of the drawing. 

After the number 61, it found the number 32 was the second 'luckiest', having been picked 89 times between 2015 and 2023. 

The number 63 was the third 'luckiest', having been drawn 88 times over the time period. 

Following the number 13, the numbers 49 and 34 were the least commonly drawn, according to the study. Both have been picked just 54 times in the last eight years. 

The number 29, meanwhile, has only been picked 57 times between 2015 and 2023, it found.

Meanwhile a separate study from Lottery Geeks analyzed the number of Powerball and Mega Millions winners in every state across the US and compared it with their overall population - in order to reveal the 'luckiest' states. 

The study did not assess whether those states happened to have a higher number of lottery players as that data is not available. 

Delaware has been home to 10 Powerball winners out of a population of 989,948. It means the state counts 10.10 winners per every 1 million residents.

However it has had no Mega Millions winners - bringing its overall proportion of lottery winners down to 5.05 in every million. 

It was followed by New Hampshire which counts 11 Powerball winners against a population of 1,377,529 - or eight winners per million residents. In third place was Rhode Island which boasts a winning rate of 7.29 winners per million people. 

Indiana came in fourth and has the highest number of champions overall, counting 39. It means residents in the state - which has a population of 1,097,379 - have a 5.75 in one million chance of hitting the jackpot.

The top ten was rounded out by: Missouri, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kansas, Minnesota and Kentucky.

The study also looked at which states had been home to any Mega Millions winners. 

Its results showed Indiana and Missouri counted two each while Kansas, Minnesota, Rhode Island and New Hampshire had one. 

The data was sourced from lottery data while population numbers were tracked from the US Census.

The Powerball jackpot is up for grabs after a lucky winner in New Jersey won a historic $1.13 billion jackpot in the Mega Millions on Tuesday night. 

After a run of 30 drawings without a jackpot winner, a ticket matching all five numbers plus the Mega Ball was finally sold in Bayonne, New Jersey.

But DailyMail.com analysis found that the winner will likely come away with less than a quarter of the $1.13 billion advertised on billboards.

That's because if they accept their prize as a lump sum, as almost all do, they would receive $540 million. After taxes are deducted they'd then be left with $280 million.

Making matters worse for the winner is that New Jersey has one of the highest state taxes in the country, requiring winners to part with almost 11 percent of their prize. 

The headline-grabbing jackpot amount advertised in stores, gas stations and roadside billboards is not actually the amount lottery organizers have in the prize pool.

Instead, it is the total amount that would be paid to a winner in installments over 30 years if the sum it does hold was invested in Treasury bonds. That figure is higher when interest rates are higher, as they are now.

It means lottery jackpots are now inflated more than ever before and winners will be penalized more than any others in the last two decades if they opt to accept their winnings as a lump sum.

'You have to pay Uncle Sam, the federal government, but also state tax,' said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based lawyer who has advised lottery winners in the past told DailyMail.com.