Virginia Lottery: Virginia Lottery loses its shirt on triple-eights
8-8-8 was great, great, great for lots of Virginians yesterday afternoon.
Triple numbers in the Pick 3 Virginia Lottery are the most popular played, and yesterday was no exception.
A total of 12,118 tickets were sold with the winning combination, Lottery spokeswoman Jill Vaughan said. Players spent $357,870 on the tickets and won $3,028,925 in prizes, she said.
Because players could buy 50-cent tickets as well as $1 tickets, the Virginia Lottery did not have a breakdown on how many people won $250 for a 50-cent ticket or $500 for a $1 ticket.
Vaughan said the 8-8-8 combination has come up five times since the Pick 3 game began in May 1989.
The popularity of the triple numbers is evidenced by the fact that only 168 winning tickets were sold Friday, Vaughan said. That day, the afternoon number was 8-7-3 and the night number was 3-1-2.
Pick 3 drawings are held Monday through Saturday at 1:59 p.m. and 11 p.m. The odds of matching all three numbers in exact order are 1 in 1,000.