Lots More Lottery Winners Than Expected (Oops!)

[punychicken]

Story

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- While one lucky winner snagged a $25.5 million jackpot in Wednesday's Powerball drawing, a record 110 players won $500,000 and $100,000 prizes - thanks to a fortune cookie.

"Yeah, that's a lot," said Doug Orr, marketing director with the West Des Moines-based Multi-State Lottery Association, which operates Powerball. He said Wednesday's drawing broke the Aug. 25, 2001, record when 91 players won large second-tier prizes.

Statistically, the Powerball game expected to have four winners at the Match 5 prize level; instead, they had 110 winners, Orr said.

"The lotteries immediately worked to identify the reason for the unexpected number of winners and discovered that nearly all of the plays were numbers selected by the players and that nearly all of the players had chosen the red Powerball number 40," Orr said. "One ticket, a computer pick ticket, selected the Powerball number of "42" to win the jackpot."



Orr said that as the winners come forward - several winners so far in a half-dozen states - they were revealing that they got the winning number from a fortune cookie.

"With the systems reporting so many plays of 22-28-32-33-39 and Powerball 40, it is likely that most drew their luck from that very fortunate cookie," Orr said.

The Powerball game paid out nearly $20 million in cash prizes on the fortune cookie numbers.

Earlier, Orr said that MUSL was looking into various causes for the duplicate winning numbers.

"We look at patterns and birth dates and favorite numbers, and we're still looking at all of that to see if there's any kind of patterns," he said Thursday morning.

The winning jackpot ticket was sold in Tennessee.

Tickets that match the first five numbers but miss the Powerball win $100,000 each. There were 89 of those.

There were 21 Power Play Match 5 winners. These players matched the first five numbers and missed the Powerball, but placed an extra dollar on the Power Play number, a multiplier number from two to five. Last night's multiplier was five, meaning that the $100,000 prize for matching all five numbers was multiplied by five for a $500,000 prize.

According to the Powerball Web site, odds of winning the grand prize are 1 in 120,526,770, and odds of winning the $100,000 prize are about 1 in 2,939,677.

Russell Lenth, a statistician at the University of Iowa, said he was surprised at the results. He said his own calculations show that the odds of there being so many winners show such "incredibly small numbers they don't even have any meaning."

"I believe that the drawing of the numbers itself is random ... but the numbers that people choose are not random, so certain combinations of numbers will have more winners than others if they occur," he said.

Lenth said the numbers could have special significance such as ages or dates, or simply serve as favorite numbers.

"It must be something about those particular numbers," he said.

The winning numbers were: 22, 28, 32, 33 and 39, with 42 being the Powerball.

Stephanie Weyant, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Lottery, said her state had a dozen $100,000 winners and one $500,000 winner.

"We've had a lot of winners mainly because we're the largest, the most populous state playing Powerball right now," she said, adding that winning drives sales. "It's kind of one of those, 'It can happen to you.'"

Orr said having winners is good publicity for Powerball, adding that when players "know the game is winnable there's a lot of chatter out there."

The record number of the $100,000 and $500,000 prizes to be awarded won't hurt future Powerball jackpots, which will begin again at the regular $10 million jackpot level for Saturday's drawing, Orr said.

"We have the funds to cover it, no problem," he said.

 

[RainyOcean]

Question:

If multiple people pick the grand prize numbers, do they all get the winning amount, or is it split between them?

 

[littleblackduck]

Question:

If multiple people pick the grand prize numbers, do they all get the winning amount, or is it split between them?

The Grand Prize in the Superball lottery can reach sums in excess of $100 million if there is a long run of drawings with no winner--in fact I think the largest ever was over $300 million. Winnings are taxable, and if you take the lump sum up front, you'd take home about half or possibly less of the Prize monies. It would be insane to pay each Grand Prize Winner the full amount--the prize is split if two or more persons or groups have the same number. Smaller prizes are, I believe, fixed sums. That's the way the two biggest lottos in Canada work as well.

I believe lotto companies and bookies sometimes ensure themselves against anomalously large payouts.

I wasn't certain whether to regard this story as an April Fool's joke or not. It was published on March 31 and wasn't picked up very often after April 1st. It has since been followed by articles which announce that the lottery will be richer but harder to win. I suspect the "fortune cookie" element is fanciful although the record number of winners isn't. Perhaps if we knew how many people set the previous record ....

 

[EnolaGaia]

In this new Massachusetts case a special formula was used to calculate the amounts due the unexpectedly large number of winners.

50 people won a Massachusetts lottery game, most on record

Fifty people won the Massachusetts lottery game Mass Cash on Sunday, a record according to the state lottery agency.

For a dollar, players choose five numbers between 1 and 35 and mark the choice on a slip. WCVB-TV reported on Monday that 50 people chose the winning combination of numbers.

The largest previous number of people to win at once was 34 ...

Usually, the jackpot for the game is $100,000. But when total prizes exceed a certain percentage of sales, the state agency uses a formula to determine the prize amounts, according to its website.

The people who matched all five numbers on Sunday will take home more than $48,000. ...

FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/boston-massachusetts-0de6c0b7c718fb49d6f942988c47a26d

 

[ChrisBoardman]

In the UK

The most people to win the same jackpot was 133 – they all picked the numbers 7, 17, 23, 32, 38 and 42 on 14 January 1995. It's hard to imagine the emotional rollercoaster of thinking you have won the £16,293,830 jackpot only to end up with 1/133 of that total: £122,510.

 

[gordonrutter]

In the UK

The most people to win the same jackpot was 133 – they all picked the numbers 7, 17, 23, 32, 38 and 42 on 14 January 1995. It's hard to imagine the emotional rollercoaster of thinking you have won the £16,293,830 jackpot only to end up with 1/133 of that total: £122,510.

I remember that, those who had won the second prize with five numbers and the bonus ball all, as individual players, got more per person than the jackpot winners.

 

[Bad Bungle]

I remember that, those who had won the second prize with five numbers and the bonus ball all, as individual players, got more per person than the jackpot winners.

My brother tried to cut across the back of Watford to get home at the time, but Tolpits Lane was solid with traffic. That's when I learnt where the Camelot Office was sited.

 

[Bad Bungle]

I read an article in the late 90's of a chap who had a dream about lottery numbers. So convinced was he that the numbers would win, he gave them to his Syndicate Manager and also used them on a personal ticket. The lottery jackpot that week was won by just two ticket holders - the members of the Syndicate (six in total) were ecstatic, their relatives and friends were less happy when they found out the other ticket holder was one of the members. By him buying a personal ticket and splitting the jackpot, the other five members had 'missed out' on around £193,000 each.
By the time I was a syndicate manager at Work, it became standard practice to either use lucky dip numbers or forbid members (by contract) to use syndicate numbers for themselves.

 

[ChrisBoardman]

I remember that, those who had won the second prize with five numbers and the bonus ball all, as individual players, got more per person than the jackpot winners.

I marked out the winning numbers on a lotto slip at the time and the pattern was a really simple one:

Many people drew this pattern, there was no lucky dip until the next year.

_____
_X___
_____
_X___
__X__
_____
_X___
__X__
_X___
____

 

[PeteS]

I read an article in the late 90's of a chap who had a dream about lottery numbers. So convinced was he that the numbers would win, he gave them to his Syndicate Manager and also used them on a personal ticket. The lottery jackpot that week was won by just two ticket holders - the members of the Syndicate (six in total) were ecstatic, their relatives and friends were less happy when they found out the other ticket holder was one of the members. By him buying a personal ticket and splitting the jackpot, the other five members had 'missed out' on around £193,000 each.
By the time I was a syndicate manager at Work, it became standard practice to either use lucky dip numbers or forbid members (by contract) to use syndicate numbers for themselves.

And the dreamer of the numbers missed out a shed load by sharing his information with the syndicate. I guess he had more reason to moan than the others.

 

[Gloucestrian]

And the dreamer of the numbers missed out a shed load by sharing his information with the syndicate. I guess he had more reason to moan than the others.

Yes exactly! What a lose-lose situation, if he had been wrong about the numbers they would have complained about his superstitious use of the dream numbers, when they won they complained he had shared them. He did the right thing in my opinion, but he should have kept quiet about the origin of the numbers.

 

[Bad Bungle]

It was his turn to choose the numbers that week for the Syndicate. The members weren't complaining about the win, it was their relatives and friends who resented the jackpot being split because of the additional personal ticket. The fact that he dreamt the winning numbers is what made the story news-worthy and suitable for a Forteana thread.

 

[PeteS]

It was his turn to choose the numbers that week for the Syndicate. The members weren't complaining about the win, it was their relatives and friends who resented the jackpot being split because of the additional personal ticket. The fact that he dreamt the winning numbers is what made the story news-worthy and suitable for a Forteana thread.

It is indeed an amazing story. Interesting that no matter how good someone's luck is, some will whinge that they should have had more.

 

[charliebrown]

I play lottery it seems like forever, and I have never won more than maybe ten dollars.

But it is for a good cause.

In Tennessee lottery money allows any high school graduate to go to a two year college for free for an associate degree.

Over the years many, many poor high school graduates have been helped.

 

[PeteS]

I play lottery it seems like forever, and I have never won more than maybe ten dollars.

But it is for a good cause.

In Tennessee lottery money allows any high school graduate to go to a two year college for free for an associate degree.

Over the years many, many poor high school graduates have been helped.

That's a really good way of using lottery money. I suspect a proportion of UK lottery money is wasted on ludicrous schemes, although a lot of good causes have benefited.