Ohio's Top Performing Pick 3 Pairs and their Followers
Ohio Pick 3 Pair Testing (2011–Present)
Do Certain Pairs Actually Lead to Other Pairs?
For years, Pick 3 players have talked about “pairs that follow other pairs.”
You hear it all the time: “When this pair hits… watch for these next.”
But the real question is… Does the data actually support that idea?
So I decided to test it.
Using a full Ohio Pick 3 file from 2011 to the present, I ran a structured backtest using Cursor to remove bias and guesswork—and what came back was very interesting.
How the Test Was Run
Before we even look at results, here’s the important part—how this was tested:
All Ohio draws were treated as one continuous timeline
(Midday + Evening combined)Pairs were normalized
21 = 12
30 = 03
This gave a clean set of 55 unique pairs
For each pair, the test looked ahead up to 6 draws
The goal:
After a pair shows… do specific “follower pairs” show up often enough to matter?
The Big Finding
Here’s the truth…
Yes — some pairs do show follow behavior.
But it is NOT universal.
This is where most systems go wrong.
They try to make everything mean something.
But the Ohio data says:
Only certain pairs are worth paying attention to.
What Actually Worked
Out of all 55 pairs tested:
9 pairs graded out as A (strong)
28 pairs graded as B (usable)
6 pairs graded as C (weak)
12 pairs = not worth playing
So right away, we learn something important:
This is not a “use it everywhere” system.
It’s a “use it selectively” tool.
The Strongest Pair Setups
Here are some of the best-performing setups from the test:
13 → 07, 15 (59.0%)
99 → 78, 16 (57.0%)
44 → 59, 47 (56.6%)
00 → 08, 15 (55.3%)
15 → 08, 25 (55.2%)
25 → 48, 28 (55.0%)
56 → 09, 14 (54.8%)
37 → 36, 03 (54.6%)
46 → 37, 27 (53.2%)
These were measured as:
“Either follower hits within 6 draws”
With average hit timing around 3 draws
That’s a very playable window. Below is the chart I prepared for myself for future reference on the top performing pairs in Ohio's Pick 3 game with consistent followers.
