Dear Lottery Machine Number, MC Number and Guessing: What They Are and Why They Can't Predict a Result

What the terms mean

These words are not used by the state lotteries. They are used loosely, and differently, by each channel that sells or shares predictions. In general:

One app with more than 10,000 downloads, for example, advertises a "Smart Target Generator" that gives 4-digit and 5-digit targets "based on recent winning trends" — while stating in the same listing that it is not affiliated with the Nagaland State Lottery Department.

How a Dear draw is actually run

The Lotteries (Regulation) Act, 1998 sets the rules every state lottery must follow. Three of them matter here:

• The state conducts every draw itself — section 4(e). The 1 PM and 8 PM draws are Nagaland's; the 6 PM draw is Sikkim's.
• The draw takes place inside that state — section 4(g).
• No prize can be offered on a pre-announced number or on a single digit — section 4(a). A game that pays on a number announced in advance, or on one digit, is not a lawful state lottery.

Nagaland streams its draws live on YouTube from the "Live Draw" page of its official website, and the result sheet follows within minutes. The winning numbers are produced in front of the camera at draw time. There is no earlier list for anyone to leak, and nothing a machine "does" that shows up in past results.

What one result sheet contains

Every regular Dear draw produces the same set of winning numbers. This is what any prediction is up against:

The per-ticket chances follow directly from the sheet. There are 1,00,000 possible 5-digit numbers and 10,000 possible 4-digit endings. Ten 2nd-prize numbers out of 1,00,000 is 1 in 10,000. A hundred 5th-prize endings out of 10,000 is 1 in 100. Together, 120 four-digit endings win something in the 3rd, 4th or 5th tier of every draw.

Why "target numbers" keep hitting

Every 4-digit guess has a 1.2% chance (120 in 10,000) of appearing somewhere in the 3rd, 4th or 5th prize lists. That sounds small until you multiply it by the number of guesses a channel posts.

So a channel that posts 10 random endings for every draw will almost certainly have a "hit" screenshot to share every week — without any knowledge of the draw. It can also delete or ignore the 19 or 20 draws that missed. What you see is the hits, not the hit rate.

Two-digit targets are even easier to "hit". With 120 four-digit endings on each sheet, any given pair of last two digits appears at least once in about 70% of draws. A two-digit "target" that comes up in 7 draws out of 10 looks impressive and means nothing — a random pair would do the same.

Why "missing numbers" are not due

A missing-number list assumes an ending that hasn't appeared for a while is more likely to come next. It isn't. Each draw is a fresh, independent event. The chance that a particular ending appears in the 3rd–5th prize lists is 1.2% in every draw, whether it appeared yesterday or not for a month.

Being "missing" is also the normal state for almost every ending:

• The chance that a given ending stays out of the 3rd–5th lists for 20 draws in a row is 0.988²⁰ — about 79%.
• So at any moment, roughly 7,850 of the 10,000 endings have been "missing" for the last 20 draws.

A missing-number list can therefore be thousands of numbers long. Whichever ones a channel picks from it, the choice is arbitrary. The belief that a number is "due" has a name: the gambler's fallacy.

The same reasoning applies to "hot" numbers. An ending that appeared three times last week has no more chance than any other in tonight's draw.

Do any patterns exist in Dear results?

To find a real pattern you would need to show that some numbers come up more often than chance allows, over enough draws to rule out luck — not a screenshot of one hit. Prediction channels never publish their full record of picks against results, which is the only way to judge them.

We publish every 1 PM, 6 PM and 8 PM result in our old results archive, so anyone can test a "pattern" against real sheets. When we publish our own frequency analysis of past draws, we will add it to this page.

What predictions cost you

The picks are free; the business model usually isn't. Common patterns:

• Paid groups — a fee to join a "VIP" Telegram or WhatsApp group with "confirm" or "fix" numbers. No one can sell a fixed number for a lottery drawn live by the state.
• Ticket upselling — groups that tell you to buy many tickets ending in the "target", which multiplies what you spend, not your odds per rupee.
• Fake win claims — the "you won with our number, pay a fee to collect" message. Real prizes are paid by the state directorate, never released for a fee.
• App coins and referrals — prediction "games" that reward you for recruiting other users.

What the numbers say about any ticket

A regular Dear ticket costs ₹7. Using the prize table above, the expected return from the lower prizes is:

• 2nd prize: 10 × ₹10,000 ÷ 1,00,000 = ₹1.00
• 3rd prize: 10 × ₹500 ÷ 10,000 = ₹0.50
• 4th prize: 10 × ₹250 ÷ 10,000 = ₹0.25
• 5th prize: 100 × ₹120 ÷ 10,000 = ₹1.20
• Consolation: about ₹0.01

That adds up to about ₹2.96 per ticket, before the ₹1 crore first prize. The first prize adds ₹1 crore divided by the number of tickets in the draw, which the state does not print on the result sheet. No choice of number — machine, missing, hot or target — changes any of these figures, because every ending has the same chance.

The honest summary: about 1 ticket in 83 wins something, usually the ₹120 5th prize. Treat a ticket as entertainment with a known cost, not a plan.

How to check your own ticket

Read the result for your ticket's date and time on the 1 PM, 6 PM or 8 PM page, or type your number into the ticket checker. Our guide to reading the result sheet explains which digits each prize checks.

18+ only. Lottery is a game of chance; play only with money you can afford to lose. Lottery Sambad Today publishes results and guides, never predictions, and is not affiliated with the Nagaland or Sikkim State Lotteries.