The Mount Horeb couple who made headlines earlier this week because they held two of only four winning tickets sold in Wisconsin for Saturday's SuperCash drawing, turn out to have the other two as well.
Verlyn Adamson, 69, and his wife, Judith, 69, of Mount Horeb, turned in the other two tickets and it turned out they are the only winners in Saturday's drawing and are now $1.4 million richer.
Lottery spokesman Andrew Bohage was surprised when the Adamsons held the first two winning tickets. "I don't recall a time when we've had members of the same household win in the same drawing like that," he said, when they turned in the two tickets.
His shocked doubled today.
"We haven't seen anything quite like this before," he said after learning the Adamsons had the other two winning tickets. "This is unique."
The Adamsons presented two tickets to lottery officials which had Saturday's winning numbers and each of those tickets paid out $350,000. Then they brought in the other two winners, which now raise the total they have won to $1.4 million.
The four tickets were purchased at four different stores in four different communities, lottery officials said. They bought one ticket each at the Stop-N-Go on Highway 18-151 in Barneveld, the Darlington Mini Mart at highways 23 and 81, The Pit Stop in Mineral Point, and the Cenex Mini Mart in Mount Horeb.
Each of those four tickets had the winning numbers in Saturday's SuperCash drawing, which were 1, 5, 8, 13, 24 and 26.
Bohage said Verlyn Adamson chose the numbers based on a "formula" he had worked out.
The Adamsons said they did not want to have a news conference and told lottery officials they would issue a statement through their lawyer.
But after presenting the first two tickets, Judith Adamson said, "I'm in a state of shock." She also said they had been playing the same numbers for several years.
After taxes, the Adamsons will pocket $995,000.
Thanks to mulamula for the tip.
Oh Joy! We finally have the CORRECT numbers!
Now to get crackin' on figuring out HOW they arrived at them.
If I am successful in doing that then I will freely share it.
It would be a riot if one of my own algorithms given their data gave the same result!
And again, if we guess that 10percent? of players use systems, then when there is a winner (all else equal) there is a 10% chance they used a system. If there were a disproportionate amount of winners that used systems or if a thorough honest backtest of their secret system shows that it made profit even before this drawing, then let me know how much the shareware fee is and if it can do it in nj.
BY the way, it DID happen before, and even more so. A man in Seattle played the same Mega for 10 tickets with different bonus balls but same white balls. He had the first 5 but none of the bonus balls and won I think 1.75M at the time, and said HE used a system.
In January I used a system in PA, and played the same P3 several times for a win.
And I wonder now will WI re-evaluate their draw procedure and do whatever they can to prevent this from happening again???
Who says there is no system!!!! This couple has one. So predicting the lotto is possible after all!
More power to them!!!!
There are more systems out there than teenagers at a Jonas Brothers concert. But I have never seen a backtest of any showing consistent profit, which would be a key selling point more so than one major jackpot win and several small wins that may or may not have netted profit before then. I do hope that their system is valid and profitable and can be used on other games including here. I would even be interested in buying it if it could help with Jersey 5 or MM or PB etc. But I would have to see the backtest results first. In fact being a programmer if they want they can contact me to write a program for them to automate their system, wink-wink, nod-nod!
The one big hurdle with any system is it has to overcome the poor return with otherwise random play. 50 cents on the dollar usually. Sometimes less because of taxes. But if a system has a chance to give me just one multimillion life-changing win then it's worth it even if it's otherwise in the red. I'd rather win 5/5 or 6/6 once than several 3/5, 4/6 etc. It depends on the particular system.
The math professor is correct only in an ideal world. A while back in TN a good system was to not play any doubles ever. Also I predict that tonights Mega bonus ball will be on a YELLOW colored ball, in fact I guarantee it, so only play the YELLOW bonus balls on Mega!!!
"But after presenting the first two tickets, Judith Adamson said, "I'm in a state of shock." She also said they had been playing the same numbers for several years."
What kind of "system" can it be if they have been playing the same numbers for several years? Sounds mighty strange to me.
It's not much of a system for jackpot games if it came up with the same combination four times unless they were playing to win several lower tiers prizes. Since one ticket can win as much as four tickets when the same person owns them, it makes more sense to not have repeats unless you were playing a pick3/4 game.
Whatever system they used, it sure paid off! Congrats to them, again!
You took the words right out of my mouth (or should I say fingers?) I began to type something similar before I saw your post.
Brad Duke claimed to use a numbering system that had won him a couple hundred dollars (and 85 million) in the Powerball.
Bull.
Sorry guys but it's mathmatically impossible. ONE: If such a formula existed, it would have been discovered easily by now. There is no forumla. A formula would defeat the entire purpose of the lottery. TWO: Lotteries employ a certain range of possibilities, played over a certain population, which USUALLY results in a win a couple of draws later. MILLIONS of people play random and chosen numbers. The numbers are drawn RANDOMLY hence...no formula can determine an outcome. Each player has their own idiosyncrasies; one might say they have a formula, or one might claim they have magic powers, another may claim it's complete luck...maybe even another claims their particular god had something to do with it. For some reason, most people get behind the "formula" myth. I think it's the most "credible" myth because it's quasimathmatical and doesn't exclude people by religion or other demographic. A good way to think of playing the lottery is that you are picking a handful of numbers out of a pool of a HUNDRED MILLION numbers. That is your number.
I agree. A random system will play out the odds. Mathematics is a rock in this respect. Non-random lotteries (i.e. rigged systems and faulty) can be predicted. People who claim life is easy, lunch is free and money falls from the sky in plenty are selling something. Please, don't be a sucker, have fun and play wisely.
So they played the same numbers four times. There was a guy from Wisconsin a while back that did the same thing. I don't understand this. They should know how the payouts work for Supercash. Supercash will payout up to 20 winning tickets!!!!! That's $7,000,000. You get two plays for a buck. So these people spent $2. If you feel that strongly about a set of numbers to play them multiple times, why not just splurge and spend $8 more and buy the maximum of 20 tickets to multiply the amount of your winnings by a factor of five while spending only a few more bucks to do it. Congrats to them but understand how these games work people.
Let me get this straight. He said he has a formula. She says they have been playing the same numbers for years. Which one is it?
Oh, I know now! Her numbers range from 1 to 39.
I tend to believe him more than her solely because I want to believe him.
As to a way he can make money with a system, he uses his "formula" to find 7 numbers that have a good chance of being drawn. These 7 numbers will translate into 21 possible combinations (lines, for those of you old-timers). If I remember correctly, there will be at a minimum 4 combinations out of the 21 with three or more numbers. Tennessee pays approximately $9 for three numbers.
9 x 4 = 28
Now take your five plays slips and travel around, playing all 21 at different stores in the area. The more stores, the better. After the draw, go back to those stores and collect. He will stay under the Lotto and IRS radar.
Sadly, all that is required to bring his world crashing down is to be wrong three times in a row. LOL.
They are doing their best to capitalize on this win too. It's now the headliner on Yahoo News. It says something like "couple has formula to win lottery" and that "they won the lottery 4 times" but they only won once! I think the person who won $50 million or $100 million using birthdays or buying a QP is better off, but I'll take any win. I think it's great when anyone wins, but I wouldn't want my name all over the internet. Not that $1.4 million isn't a nice prize, but I would want my privacy.
Hey Jack - I think you are mistaken.
I have a Powerball 'formula' - and I bet most of us on here do as well, for whatever game they play.
This does not mean our 'formula' is going to pick the correct numbers for us, for example: my 'formula' helps me decide how to configure distinct pools of numbers to choose from, and it also eliminate a bunch of numbers based on other criteria. None of this means I'm going to choose the correct numbers, I still think it takes a lot of luck for things to fall into place in order to win.
Look at the three numbers that have gone on the longest without being hit - currently this is 38, 27 and 30. What are the odds two or all three of them will hit next ? Not likely. If you want to play one, which one do you play ? You research it and devise a 'formula', and you will either get lucky - or not. Eventually you will. BUT even if you did in this respect, that's only one number you have nailed, you need more.
I have hit 4x5 in PB eleven times, and I have missed out on two 5x5's - both of those I had all the correct numbers in my pools, in both of these cases I had four numbers to choose from, the number that hit was in that pool, but I chose the wrong one. So why didn't I wheel it, you ask ? Because I have X numbers in four different pools - I can't wheel everything.
I keep trying to tell folks - you can do more good in devising a system to ELIMINATE numbers to choose from possibly much much better than trying to devise a system to pick the winners. This may not make any sense to some, but it's something I fully understand.
I hope they get their patent on their 'formula' I would certainly buy it.
I think im missing something..They had all four tickets to the winning jackpot..obviously all the tickets had the same numbers, so why would they drive to 4 different stores?...especially if "he" has a formula..
Perhaps to eliminate the chances that the clerk would go "hmm..." and play those exact same numbers once the winners left?
I know I'm perceptive enough to recognize odd behavior...and playing a set of numbers multiple times would arouse my suspicions enough to prompt me to throw my own dollar down on the set as well.
I see what you are saying, but are you a clerk in a store that sells tickets? Where I go, the people are too busy to bother. I suppose if I told someone to run a number 4 times, it would be different. Otherwise, a person would need to have a photographic memory to remember 6 numbers.
If I could find a total of 7 numbers (hence 21 combinations) and knew for a fact three numbers will be drawn, I would only run all 21 combinations thru one store, and then drive to another store for my second purchase. And so on.
First and foremost, I would not wish to draw attention to myself as having a "formula" that consistantly won. Once word got out, I don't think my life would be worth a Zimbabwe dollar.
This couple made a huge mistake. I can see it now. Some convict, about to get out on parole, has already made plans to kidnap this man, learn his "formula" and, to silence a potential witness, well.......you know what will happen next.
That's why I would drive to several different stores. I have no idea why the man in the article did.
Of course, being paranoid helps. Remeber, the question is not "Are you paranoid?" The question is "Are you paranoid enough?"
I agree. Most store clerks probably see a hundreds of numbers and lines a day. Why would they pick out one person and take their numbers. Odds are they don't care what numbers you pick.
thats the thing with patents , they have to work before you can patent them.
When David Sneath of Livonia,Michigan won his $135M MegaMillion jackpot on his 60th birthday back in April, he picked his own numbers too, but from an old QP tickets and as far as I know he hasn't set a trend.
I don't see what the buzz is about. The guy played the same numbers for the SAME drawing. If he won the jackpot from separate drawings, then he would have something to talk about. He didn't win the lottery 4 times.
1. Bear in mind their payout is fixed I think, always 350K or that multiplied by the Doubler (too bad no doubler huh?) up to a certain # of winners, so the store clerk copying their #s might not have mattered. Sometimes they ask "are you sure you meant to play the same set 4 times?" but it probably is he plays his set each time he visits a store for whatever reason that has Lottery.
2. My best algorithms so far have matched 3 of 6 on the same drawing. It could also have been an "optimized" set. A set of numbers that has a good chance to come out together "sometime" but not necessarily on the next drawing. I will run calculations to see if there was such a set. Such a combination can be played for months or years but will often match nothing. So far I don't see much special about half of the numbers in that set.
He did win in the past, smaller amounts, but the question being that until this jackpot was he making any profit or just waiting on a big jackpot. Could the same system win again? Could it win other than in WI?
The key again is BACKTEST everything!
The reason that I would buy the system is so I can have a better chance to figure out what the strategy was. Even if it was really a fluke and just coincidence I want to know how another person calculated numbers vs. how I do.
If you assume each winning combination could have been pick by an algorithm then you'll find 10-15% of them have enough similarities to have been picked by the same algorithm. Then it's just a matter of reducing the possible combinations to an affordable amount because 10% of 300-400 past drawings are still 40 lines and there are probably another 10 thousands or so lines that could still have been picked.
Sorry but I have to ask something.. when did the format change to 39 numbers for SuperCash? I notice that the few highest numbers must have been added relatively recently. Was he aware of the extra numbers? Usually format changes can render the best system impotent until the new format is out for a while to build new data. This is especially so in ball drawings where there are now a few more flying around in the bin knocking around the original balls! Be very wary of a system that spans across a format change.
When I generated an "optimized set" it gave me this:
SUPERCASH
10 27 31 35 38 39
it included the 38 and 39, but use at your own risk, as it used the entire database.
Other thing to consider: did he write a program? Not many of us are programmers, so if he did this by hand then the algorithm can't be that complicated, can it?
After hearing the Adamsons were "exploring patent protection" for their equation, Steven Post, a mathematics professor at Edgewood College in Madison, wasn't buying it. He said there is no way to devise a strategy for finding the winning numbers in a game that uses randomly generated numbers to determine the winning combination.
He said, the only strategy would be to "buy all the tickets".
He said there is no way to devise a strategy for finding the winning numbers in a game that uses randomly generated numbers to determine the winning combination.
I agree... there are millions of gamblers over the years who have tried to devise a system to win the lottery. If such a system were found we would have heard about it by now.
The lottery drawings are not mathematical equations that can be decoded.
Believe me i wish they were.
RJOH, I am sure there would be tons of people from here that would be begging for your system if you won. Your inbox will be full of requests.
I just quoted the Professor words but I never said I believed them. He wouldn't be first person of knowledge who stated what seems like a simple truth that was later proved wrong.
Besides, if anyone ever devised such a system it wouldn't be talked about publicly , the lotteries would have to discover it and they would just change something in the game to make it harder for such a system to work.