"Just hope no one you meet or get acquainted with decides to later put your name in a search engine and see what they can find." DC81

You've got that right!  I never thought about it until I saw my name & photo on the internet.  Not that I'm on America's Most Wanted list, but once I let a young reporter ask me if I was prepared for the hurricane season and later that week saw my picture online.  If you had to choose the worst photo ever taken of me, that had to be the one.  I was also misquoted and sounded like a moron. 

For years, Bobby Guffey of Roanoke has been playing the same numbers in an attempt to win the Hoosier Lottery.

His picks represent a combination of ages and numbers representing the months of his kids' birthdays.

How could he had played the same numbers for years if his picks included the ages of his kids which changed every year? 

When I put my name in the search engine, all I got so far is something about a Christmas Bazaar (how Bizarre!) in Kansas.

It happens often enough: I put in for Middays but forgot to mark Midday and it goes for Evening and it comes out not Midday but Evening! Or they ran the Pick-5 twice and it won 3 of 5 twice. Or I win 4 times in one month and then discover that the algorithm I was using had a bug that if corrected would have won nothing. The best part is when someone wins on their own numbers, not the hot little RNG chip in the ELE7VEN green machine. In the case of using birthdays/ages then it IS luck because the numbers on the balls flying around in the draw machine aren't based on birthdays or ages. Playing such numbers makes some winners but technically it's not any better than RNG but it's nice when someone played their own numbers.

New algorithm: whatever your system picks, some or all digits ending in "6" should change to "8" and vice-versa...(variation of VTRACs??) and bringing your eyeglasses into the store is bad luck.

It all depends on what "same numbers" means. Can mean "same method of numbers". Or maybe he has a system but just tells the media it's birthdays and ages??

a Christmas Bazaar (how Bizarre!)

Damn you, now I have that song stuck in my head!

Wouldn't this qualify for dumb luck? Okay, blind luck would be more fitting. Congrats to them, it's not going to be a million dollars after taxes (I assume the total up there is before taxes) but that certainly should be enough to pad the retirement and help send their grand kids to college.

Thats a great story. I'm happy for him.  Even mess ups can be winners lol.

But I'm wondering, because I have played numbers that meant something to me...birthdays and ages and such.  But when one plays certain numbers they choose for whatever game, does that mean they play the game every time it rolls?  Thinking their numbers could someday make em rich, and not wanting to miss that magical draw when all their picked balls come up, do you play every time? Or just your numbers when you feel like playing.  I always wondered that.  I think thats why I play qp's more often then my own.  I never play every draw.  MM when it hits 50M and every draw till its hit.  Then not again till 50M.  That way I can spread my lottery budget to my state lotto, Hit5, and the new Pick 4 that we have now..........which I haven't bought yet lol. But I see winners on the website....maybe tomorrow I'll play.

If you have your own numbers you play, do you play every draw?

Oh, I'm half blind myself lol 8's look like 6's....2's look like 3's.  I need some luck now. Even though its not a huge win, I'd be very happy with getting out of debt and sending the kids to college...finishing with some vacation you thought you'd never be able to afford.  That would be grrrrrrrrrrrreat!

CONGRATS TO THEM!

Well, it is apparent that this guy actually chose the "right" numbers.  If I were the journalist thinking up a headline for this story, I think I would have titled it, "Man Plays Unintended Lottery Numbers and Wins Jackpot; Goes Back and Plays Intended Numbers and wins 2nd Tier Prize!"  I think that would be a more correct description of what he did as I don't think anyone who somehow picks the winning jackpot numbers would describe them as the wrong numbers (unless his/her vocabulary did not contain the word "unintended").

Congrats though to him. 

He didn't really choose the wrong number, he checked the wrong box, found the mistake later, and played another ticket checking the "right" box. But had he checked the right box the first time, he would not have won so it is a neat story.

Every time I read about playing a large wheel with thousand of combinations, I wonder how they could fill out the play slips without making many mistakes.

That would make an interesting headline:

Man checks the wrong box, finds the mistake later, then plays another ticket checking the "right" box, and his first ticket wins the jackpot

Or, you can stick with the original headline:

Man choose wrong lottery numbers and wins jackpot

Personally, I like the original headline better. 

In a news story, a headline is not used to spell out all the minutia.  It is used to summarize the story, which it does in this case. 

From the winner's perspective, he did indeed choose the wrong numbers, so it is accurate.

@Todd.      Just like a book title, a headline is supposed to attract your attention, not summarize the

story.

"From the winner's perspective, he did indeed choose the wrong numbers, so it is accurate."

Yep, checking the wrong box and choosing the wrong number is almost the same thing and I agree the headlines are accurate because he won on the mistake.

People playing the same numbers every week know them and might not check their tickets.

Man cashes his ticket believing he hit 5 out of 6 and finds out he won the jackpot because he forgot his glasses and checked the wrong box