Lotteries are hosted around the world and are subject to just as many myths and mysteries as any other form of gambling. The interesting thing about the lottery is that there are actually amazing tales of coincidence that will make you wonder if everything is as random as we like to think.
The odds of any of the following events actually occurring are so low as to be virtually impossible. However, you have to remember the law of big numbers. Hundreds of lottery drawings take place every single day around the world – and have been taking place for decades. When this many people participate in something, there are bound to be weird coincidences.
In fact, it would be truly strange if nothing weird ever happened. The world is a big place and with so many lotteries running every day, year after year, weird things will happen. Keep that in mind when you ask yourself, “Are these coincidences or conspiracies?”
The Luckiest Fortune Cookies Ever
In 2005, a single Powerball drawing resulted in 110 second-place winners. All 110 players got five of the six numbers correct and ended up winning a total of $19 million. Each winner took home $100,000 or $500,000 depending on whether or not each player had chosen the Power Play option.
Lottery officials suspected fraud because they expected 4 or 5 winners at most. How could 110 people from around the country have picked the same exact winning numbers? Lottery officials stayed up late trying to figure out if there was fraud or if some popular television series had included a lottery ticket as a part of its plot
As winners came forward to claim their tickets, it was soon revealed that players had chosen their numbers based on fortune cookies. By some incredible coincidence, the Wonton Food company had picked the winning Powerball numbers and printed those numbers on thousands of fortune cookies. The lucky players chose those numbers and won.
The fortune read:
“All the preparation you’ve done will finally pay off”
The Woman who Won the Lottery 4 Times
A woman in Texas has managed to win the lottery four separate times for more than $20 million in prize money. You would think that winning the lottery once would be enough, and that maybe twice is incredibly lucky. But this woman went on to win the lottery a third and then a fourth time.
Now, there are some people out there who sell various “how to win the lottery” books who claim they have won the lottery dozens of times. What those people don’t tell you is that they win small amounts and buy thousands of tickets. I’ve read through some of their lottery advice and it’s all garbage.
This woman seems different because she’s not out selling books and giving interviews. Plus, we know that she actually won substantial money. We can verify that she has won millions of dollars.
The odds of this happening are so incredibly low that even I have a hard time chalking this one up to coincidence. It also doesn’t help that this lady has a PhD from Stanford University with a specialization in statistics. There just might be more to this story.
Anyone with an advanced statistics degree knows better than to play the lottery. Yet despite her knowledge, this woman played the lottery and won. And even after she won once, twice and three times she continued to play and win one more time.
Conspiracy or coincidence? I’m leaning towards conspiracy on this one.
Bulgarian Lottery Coincidence
The national lottery in Bulgaria experienced a major coincidence that left people across the nation wondering if the game was fixed. In September of 2009, the lottery was drawn live on national television. After all six numbers were revealed, the nation was stunned.
The six numbers were the same exact numbers drawn during the previous national drawing. Last time around, nobody hit the jackpot. This time, 18 people won. Something appeared fishy at first, but lottery officials did an investigation and racked it up just to coincidence.
Lottery officials said that with a drawing happening every week for the past 52 years and with just six numbers in the sequence, something like this happening are very possible. It’s rare to see it in action, but if you look at a long sequence of numbers long enough, you’ll eventually notice funny things. The 18 winners of this lottery were simply people who decided to play the same numbers as last week’s drawing.
Oregon Lottery Predicted in Advance
The Columbian Newspaper in Vancouver almost got into a whole heap of trouble when it printed the winning numbers for the Oregon lottery a day in advance of the drawing. A Vancouver resident noticed the eerie prediction after the lottery and gave Oregon lottery officials a call.
Officials checked and double-checked the man’s story and found he was right. The Columbian had printed the winning numbers of the Oregon lottery (6-8-5-5) a few hours before the lottery was actually hosted. Lottery officials couldn’t figure out what happened, so they got help from a detective with the Oregon State Police.
The detective visited the newspaper, asked questions and found out what really happened. The computers used by the Columbian had crashed at the last minute before being printed, so a copy editor was assigned to redo certain pages. Crunched for time on the lottery predictions page, the copy editor simply grabbed Virginia’s previous Pick-4 numbers and used those for the next day’s prediction.
It just so happened that Oregon went on to pick those numbers. I think we can chalk this one up to coincidence. With only four numbers in the sequence and a police detective checking things out, this was probably just a long shot lucky guess.
Or was it?
Illinois Lottery 666 the Day After the 2008 Presidential Election
This might be the creepiest or funniest story of them all depending on how you look at it. It was the day after the 2008 Presidential Election and Barack Obama was about to become the newest President of the United States.
Happy with victory, the President Elect and his team had no idea what sort of evil was brewing back in his home state of Illinois.
Exactly one day after the election, President Elect Obama’s home-state of Illinois hosted its usual daily Pick 3 lotto. The winning numbers were 666, the number of the beast, the anti-Christ or the devil (whichever you prefer).