Lucky Phone Number Picker (手机号选号)

Lucky Phone Number Picker — what the score counts, and what people pay for an 8

In Mandarin and Cantonese, 8 (八 bā, baat3) shares its rhyme and tone with 發 (fā, faat3, "prosper") and differs only in its first consonant, while 4 (四 sì, sei3) is the same syllable as 死 (sǐ, sei2, "die") in a different tone. That holds in both languages, per the Unicode Unihan database, version 18.0. The belief built on those near-matches is strong enough to move prices. Hong Kong's Transport Department sells vehicle registration marks at auction, and Ng, Chong & Du, studying Hong Kong auctions from 1997 to 2009, found that an ordinary 4-digit plate with one extra 8 sold for 63.5% more on average and one with an extra 4 for 11% less (Journal of Economic Psychology, 2010). This tool scores candidate numbers against that belief. It does not measure luck.

How the score is built

Three steps. (1) Each digit carries a weight (below); the weights are averaged and mapped to 50 + 5 × the average, so a number made of 0s starts at 50 and one made of 8s at 85. (2) Each pattern found anywhere in the number adds or subtracts its points. (3) The total is rounded and shown on a 0–100 scale.

Digit weights

• 8 +7
• 6 +5
• 9 +5
• 2 +3
• 3 +3
• 1 +2
• 0 0
• 5 −1
• 7 −2
• 4 −8

Pattern points

• 168 +30
• 1688 +40
• 888 +25
• 8888 +50
• 666 +20
• 999 +18
• 520 +12
• 1314 +15
• 444 −40
• 4444 −60
• 514 −15
• 250 −10

What the score does not do

• It ignores position. An 8 at the start counts exactly like an 8 at the end: 80000000 and 00000008 both score 54. The last four digits shown under each result are there for reference only.
• Overlapping patterns stack. 8888 contains 888, so it collects both (+25 and +50); 1688 collects 168 and 1688; 4444 collects −40 and −60. Each pattern counts once, however many times it appears.
• 5 is scored −1. It has no widely agreed meaning. We give it a small minus because, in our own measurement of Hong Kong e-auction plates (March 2025 to September 2026), each extra 5 went with a price about 12% lower. 7 carries −2 on the same evidence (about 7% lower, a borderline result). The usual reasons given for avoiding 7 are folk explanations, and 七 (qī) and 去 (qù, "go") are not homophones.
• The 0–100 display is capped. A number whose total passes 100 shows 100 and states its uncapped total. The ranking uses the uncapped total, so two numbers both showing 100 are still ordered, and only numbers with genuinely equal totals share a rank.
• The weights are ours. Their order matches Hong Kong plate prices; their sizes do not. In that market an extra 8 adds roughly twice what an extra 4 takes away, while here the 4 weighs slightly more than the 8.

Score bands

• 80-100 Excellent
• 65-79 Good
• 45-64 Neutral
• 25-44 Unfavourable
• 0-24 Very unfavourable

A band is a name for a range of scores. It says nothing about where any digit sits.

Where the belief shows up in prices

Hong Kong's Transport Department lists its ten highest auction prices since 1973. Four are numeric marks, and every one contains an 8 or a 9: 28 (HK$18.1 million, 2016), 18 (HK$16.5 million, 2008), 9 (HK$13 million, 1994) and 88 (HK$11.4 million, 2025). In Malaysia, JPJ's FF series drew RM34,296,327 in May 2023, with FF8 the top plate at RM950,000. For phone numbers, the record Guinness World Records recognises is 666-6666, sold in Doha, Qatar, on 23 May 2006 for QAR 10 million; Guinness said in February 2026 that it still stands.

Using it

Paste the numbers you are choosing between, such as a carrier's selection or candidate plates, and compare them on one set of rules. The score is not a price and not a forecast. Singtel, for one, sells pattern numbers as a named category ("Golden Numbers", with endings such as 1818, 1288, 1388 and 6688) but publishes no prices for them, and Singapore's LTA announces vehicle-number bidding results without publishing a list of bid prices. So this page quotes no Singapore premium.