North Carolina Cash 5 – Statistical Autopsy for Sunday, December 7, 2025

Main Draw Results – North Carolina Cash 5

Winning Numbers: 1523253141

Jackpot: $332,000

Double Play (Extra) Results

Double Play Numbers: 89243843

What Stands Out About 15-23-25-31-41?

At first glance, tonight’s North Carolina Cash 5 line looks like a standard, unremarkable spread. That’s exactly why it’s dangerous for casual players: it feels normal, and “normal” is where most people lose quietly.

• Odd/Even split: 15, 23, 25, 31, 41 → 5 odds, 0 evens. That’s statistically uncommon. In a fair 5/43 game, the most frequent patterns are 3/2 and 2/3 odd-even splits. A 5–0 odd sweep is a low-probability configuration, but still perfectly legitimate.
• Number range: All numbers are between 15 and 41. No single-digit or low-teens numbers. That leaves the 1–14 range completely untouched, another mild anomaly.
• Clustering: The gaps are 8, 2, 6, and 10. Nothing visually dramatic like 1-2-3-4-5 or 10-20-30-40-50. This is the kind of “boring” spacing that actually dominates real-world draws.

The real statistical curiosity tonight isn’t a visible pattern like symmetry or sequential runs. It’s the all-odd composition combined with a mid-to-high range concentration. That’s a rare enough combination that almost no one builds it on purpose, which quietly helps the few people who did match it: they’re unlikely to be sharing the jackpot with a crowd.

Double Play: 8-9-24-38-43 – Subtle Patterns the Brain Overreacts To

The Double Play line looks more “patterned” than the main draw, and that’s exactly where human intuition goes off the rails.

• Odd/Even: 8, 24, 38 (even) and 9, 43 (odd) → a 3–2 even-heavy split, which is completely normal and among the most common splits.
• Visible pattern trap: 8 and 9 are consecutive, which many players either chase (“consecutives are due”) or avoid (“too obvious”). Both attitudes are mathematically wrong; any specific pair is just as unlikely as any other.
• Range coverage: This set hits low (8, 9), mid (24), and high (38, 43). That looks like “balanced coverage,” but that’s a story our brains tell. The lottery doesn’t reward balance, only exact matches.

Between the main and Double Play draws, you see two different psychological traps:

1. Main draw: Looks boring, but is statistically quirky (all odd, mid-high).
2. Double Play: Looks patterned (8-9, spread across the range), but is statistically ordinary.

This is why “pattern hunting” is a losing strategy. The machine doesn’t care what looks tidy to the human eye.

Jackpot Context: $332,000 – Tempting, But Still a Long Shot

With a jackpot of $332,000, North Carolina Cash 5 sits in that psychological sweet spot: big enough to feel life-changing, small enough that players underestimate the odds.

Cash 5 is a 5/43 game. The total number of possible combinations is:

C(43, 5) = 962,598

So your chance of hitting 15-23-25-31-41 with a single ticket was 1 in 962,598. Not “bad for a local game” – just bad, period. The only reason it feels gentler than Powerball or Mega Millions is that those games are astronomically worse.

Pattern Breakdown: Why Tonight’s Line Is Quietly Unpopular

From a crowd behavior perspective, tonight’s results are exactly the kind of line you’d want to hit if you care about keeping the jackpot to yourself:

• No birthdays bait: Commonly played birthday numbers cluster in 1–31. Here, only 15, 23, 25, and 31 fall into that band, and they’re not the usual suspects like 7, 11, 21, or 28.
• All-odd filter: Many casual players instinctively mix odds and evens because “it looks more random.” That means pure-odd tickets are underplayed relative to their actual probability.
• Unimpressive visual: No 5s, 10s, or neat endings like 20, 30, 40. Humans love “round” or “pretty” numbers. This line is visually dull, and that’s good if you’re trying to avoid sharing a prize.

So while every combination is equally likely to be drawn, they are not equally likely to be played. That’s where strategy lives: not in predicting what will come out, but in predicting what other players will avoid.

Key Takeaways from December 7, 2025

• Tonight’s main draw (15-23-25-31-41) is statistically legitimate but behaviorally underplayed: all odd, mid-to-high, visually dull.
• The Double Play (8-9-24-38-43) looks more patterned, but is actually more typical from a probability standpoint.
• Every combination is equally likely to hit; the only real edge is avoiding the crowds that cluster on the same obvious patterns.

If you’re going to keep playing North Carolina Cash 5, stop asking, “What’s due?” and start asking, “What is everyone else afraid to play?” That’s where the quiet edge lives.