The short answer. A straight play wins only if the drawn digits match yours in exactly
the same order. A box play wins if the same digits come out in any order. That makes a box easier to win
and, for the same reason, it pays less. How much easier depends on your digits: three different digits can
be arranged six ways, a number with a repeat only three ways, and a triple cannot be boxed at all.
Every digit game on this site — New York’s Numbers and Win 4, Florida’s Pick 2 to Pick 5,
and California’s Daily 3 and Daily 4 — draws its result the same way, one digit at a time from
0 to 9. The draw knows nothing about how you played. Straight and box are choices made on the ticket, and
they decide which results count as a win for you.
What is a straight play?
A straight is the strict version. You choose a number, say 4-7-1, and you win only if the draw produces 4,
then 7, then 1. A result of 1-7-4 uses the same three digits and still loses. Because each position is drawn
separately from ten digits, the number of possible results is ten multiplied by itself once per digit, and a
straight covers exactly one of them.
Numbers Evening top-prize odds: there are 1,000 possible 3-digit results, from 000 to 999, so an exact-order (straight) play is 1 in 1,000. This is arithmetic on the game’s format, not a claim about any draw.
Win 4 Evening top-prize odds: there are 10,000 possible 4-digit results, from 0000 to 9999, so an exact-order (straight) play is 1 in 10,000. This is arithmetic on the game’s format, not a claim about any draw.
The same arithmetic applies to every three-digit and four-digit game here, whichever state runs it, because
the format is the same. A Florida Pick 3 straight and a California Daily 3 straight have identical odds.
What is a box play, and why does the number of orders change?
A box says: I do not care about the order, only the digits. The question is then how many different orders
your digits can make, and that is where most explanations get vague. The counting is short enough to do
properly.
Take three different digits, 1, 4 and 7. The first position can hold any of the three. Once it is filled,
the second can hold either of the two that remain, and the last position takes whatever is left. That is
3 × 2 × 1 = 6 orders: 147, 174, 417, 471, 714 and 741. A box on 1-4-7 wins if any one of those
six is drawn.
Now repeat a digit: 3-3-8. Run the same count and you again get six arrangements on paper, but each one
appears twice, because swapping the two 3s produces the same number. Divide by two and three genuinely
different orders remain: 338, 383 and 833. Finally, 5-5-5 has one order. Swapping identical digits changes
nothing, so a box on a triple would cover the same single result as a straight, and it can only be played
straight.
Four digits follow the same logic with one more step. Four different digits give 4 × 3 × 2
× 1 = 24 orders. One pair halves that to 12. Two pairs, such as 2-2-9-9, divide by two for each pair,
leaving 6: 2299, 2929, 2992, 9229, 9292 and 9922. A triple, such as 6-6-6-3, divides 24 by the 3 × 2
× 1 ways of shuffling the three identical digits, leaving 4 — which makes sense, since the odd
digit can sit in any one of four places. Four of a kind has one order.
What are the real odds of a box play?
Once you know how many orders a box covers, the odds are one division: the number of possible results
divided by the number of orders. For a three-digit box on different digits that is
1,000 ÷ 6 = 166.67,
which rounds to 1 in 167. The tables below do the same division for every pattern.
Three-digit games: Numbers, Pick 3, Daily 3
| Your number | Example | Orders a box covers | Box odds per play | Results of this kind |
|---|
| Three different digits |
1-4-7 |
6 |
1 in 167 |
720 of 1,000 |
| One pair |
3-3-8 |
3 |
1 in 333 |
270 of 1,000 |
| Triple |
5-5-5 |
1 (straight only) |
— |
10 of 1,000 |
Four-digit games: Win 4, Pick 4, Daily 4
| Your number | Example | Orders a box covers | Box odds per play | Results of this kind |
|---|
| Four different digits |
1-2-6-9 |
24 |
1 in 417 |
5,040 of 10,000 |
| One pair |
4-4-1-7 |
12 |
1 in 833 |
4,320 of 10,000 |
| Two pairs |
2-2-9-9 |
6 |
1 in 1,667 |
270 of 10,000 |
| Triple |
6-6-6-3 |
4 |
1 in 2,500 |
360 of 10,000 |
| All four the same |
8-8-8-8 |
1 (straight only) |
— |
10 of 10,000 |
The last column is a check on the counting, not a forecast. Add up the counts in either table and you get
every possible result exactly once. It also answers a question people ask about
these games surprisingly often: repeated digits are not rare. In a three-digit game,
280 of the 1,000 possible results
contain at least one repeat, and in a four-digit game it is
4,960 of 10,000, roughly half. A
doubled digit in tonight’s result is what the arithmetic expects, not a fault in the draw.
The other play types you will see on a ticket
Straight and box together
Most digit lotteries sell a play that joins the two: it pays the larger straight prize if the exact order
comes up, and the box prize if your digits come up in another order. It is a single play with two ways to
win, and the name differs from state to state.
A combination is not a box
A combination buys every order of your digits as its own straight. For 1-4-7 that is six separate
straight plays, not one. It covers the same six results as a box, but it is six plays and each one pays
as a straight. People mix the two up because they cover the same results; the ticket and the prize are
different.
Names and extras vary
New York, Florida and California each have their own list of play types and their own names for them.
Florida’s Pick games also offer an optional Fireball. Read the play-type line printed on your own
ticket rather than assuming it works like another state’s.
How do I check a box ticket against the result?
- Find the right draw first: the right game, the right date, and midday or evening. The two daily draws
of the same game are unrelated, and our midday and
evening guide explains why this is the commonest mistake.
- Read the play type on your ticket. If it says straight, compare position by position and stop.
- For a box, write your digits in ascending order, then write the drawn digits in ascending order. Your
ticket 7-1-4 becomes 1-4-7; a result of 4-7-1 also becomes 1-4-7.
- If the two sorted strings are identical, the box matches. If even one digit differs, it does not.
- Confirm any win with the official lottery before relying on it. Our pages are a reference, not a
claim form.
The sorting trick is worth keeping because it handles repeats without any thought. A ticket of 3-8-3 sorts
to 3-3-8, and it matches a result of 8-3-3 but not 3-8-8, which uses the same two digits in the wrong
quantities. Current results for every digit game are on the
New York Numbers, Florida Pick 3
and California Daily 4 pages, among the others listed at the foot
of this guide, and how to check results covers the general routine.
We publish results, nothing else. This site does not sell plays and is not connected to any lottery.
Prices and prize amounts for straight, box and every other play type are set by each lottery and can change,
so check the official lottery for current figures. Whether you can take part at all depends on where you are,
and that is a question for the official operator.
Does boxing a number improve my chances?
It improves the chance that a single play wins something, and it lowers what that win is worth, in step.
Neither play type touches the draw itself. Every draw is independent of the last, so a number that has not
appeared for weeks is not due and a digit that came up yesterday is no more or less likely tonight. We
publish the frequency counts for all of these games on our lucky numbers page,
alongside a test showing that picking from them does no better than picking at random. The
New York games guide covers where Numbers and Win 4 sit
among that state’s other draws.
