Unusually high number of top prize winners in Pick 5-style game
By Kate Northrop
A whopping 45 winning tickets won the California Lottery's Fantasy 5 jackpot worth $344,700 on Sat., Apr. 30, with each ticket getting an equal share of the prize.
The California Lottery's Fantasy 5 game had an astonishing number of winners after an interesting combination of winning numbers were drawn on Saturday.
On Saturday night, the game produced the winning numbers 3, 6, 9, 36, and 39. With 45 tickets matching all five numbers to hit the $344,700 jackpot, each of those winning tickets is worth $7,660.
"Though it's highly unusual for the Lottery to have 45 jackpot-winning tickets for one draw, this appears to be a wild coincidence with the winning numbers all being some combination of 3, 6, or 9," Lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker said in a press release. "We take the integrity of our games very seriously, and our security team confirms that nothing out of the ordinary took place with last night's draw, other than the outcome."
The California Lottery operates drawings for the Fantasy 5 game using a computerized random number generator.
"All of our draws happen under tight security, and we always have an independent auditor present for each draw as well," Becker continued. "We do have a lot of lottery players who feel strongly about numerology and certain lucky numbers, so it appears last night's combination of winning numbers worked in their favor."
According to the Lottery, jackpot-winning tickets were sold in 15 counties across the state. For this particular drawing, there were 104,572 winning tickets in total.
To play Fantasy 5, players pick five numbers between 1 and 39 at $1 a play. The jackpot starts between $60,000 and $80,000 and increases if there is no winner. Drawings take place every day after sales close at 6:30 pm PT.
Thanks to Mario for the tip.
It's very possible that combination was printed on a fortune cookie fortune. And many copies of said combination were distributed to Chinese restaurants throughout California.
That many tickets it's possible that 1 person had every ticket.
3-6-9-36-39
Or system players wheeled 2nd digit numbers that contained only 3-6-9
It says in the story 45 winners were spread out over 15 counties.
They were purchased from various stores around the state. I copied and pasted the winners here:
https://www.lotterypost.com/thread/340679/6940170
I can imagine this was probably a lot of birthdays of children and parents ages being played on the same drawing. But it is very strange that the numbers 3,6,and 9 are separated by 3, while 36 and 39 are also separated by 3. I have never seen lottery numbers combined in that manner.
Having said that......the "fortune cookie" explanation from "Tony Numbers"makes a lot of sense.
It could be said that the winner had no day job. And so he went on a world tour of every county in commiefornia.
funny.
Were all the tickets computer picks?Maybe the computerized random number generator pick from the easy pick tickets just saying.You cannot trust a computer drawing.
That is very possible. I remember years ago reading a story about how there were several wins on Powerball, not the grand prize, but I think it was a match 4 numbers that occurred in multiple states. It turned out many of those people used fortune cookie numbers.
There was also a similar occurrence when people all over the country played a set of numbers associated with the TV series Lost.
That's a reason I wouldn't play fortune cookie or other such numbers because I'd be sharing the jackpot with too many people.
I hope the CALottery follows up with the winners as they come forward to claim their prizes to survey why they chose those particular numbers, and how many happened to be QPs.
Wow only $7,660 they must be pretty pissed.. and then they going to get taxed on top of that.. incredible
No
The tickets were sold at 30 stores and was 45 winners so someone or some people had more than one ticket.
That's what happens in the pari-mutuel states. You think you won big and, nuh-uh.
That's kind of heartbreaking. Imagine watching the draw and seeing all the numbers on your ticket gets pulled. In your mind, you're thinking.....I don't have to go to work! Just to find out you only won 7k
Total sets with 2nd digits in positions 1 through 5: 3-6-9-6-9 = 792
6 - 2nd digit combinations with the highest total of 21 (21 sets 2nd digit combination)
36369 21
36936 21
36939 21
36969 21 <<
39369 21
69369 21
36969
21 Sets Sum
3,6,9,16,19 53
3,6,9,16,29 63
3,6,9,16,39 73
3,6,9,26,29 73
3,6,9,26,39 83
3,6,9,36,39 93 <<<
3,6,19,26,29 83
3,6,19,26,39 93
3,6,19,36,39 103
3,6,29,36,39 113
3,16,19,26,29 93
3,16,19,26,39 103
3,16,19,36,39 113
3,16,29,36,39 123
3,26,29,36,39 133
13,16,19,26,29 103
13,16,19,26,39 113
13,16,19,36,39 123
13,16,29,36,39 133
13,26,29,36,39 143
23,26,29,36,39 153
l bought a ticket that day, took one glance at the results with so many winners and said to myself...
To be fair though, 344K would not go far in California. Around where I live that would buy a 2-bedroom dump in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Blue state blues...
But it's a good amount if you're high-tailing it out of here for greener, (redder) pastures.
How many used quick picks and how many used their own numbers?
If quick picks, then the California lottery generate the same sets?
Well we have had quite a few 3 digits systems put forth here at Lottery Post using 369 in the process, but didn't find any using 369 in making up lotto combos. Those are the only numbers that can be made for that Fantasy Five draw using 3, 6, and 9. Hard to imagine 30 to 45 players came up with the same idea. In other states where they had 20 or so players win the jackpot in a small 5 number lotto game, it was usually because the players filled out a lotto card by going straight down a card column or doing a criss cross pattern. However, I haven't seen a play slip for this game, but it doesn't seem that a pattern play was involved. I kind of favor the fortune cookie theory like the time there were many winners in PB I think for the $1,000,000 prize where many players played the numbers from a fortune cookie.
%10
Yeah, the TV show Lost, Hurley's lottery numbers of 4-8-15-16-23-42 were played in the Jan. 2011 mega millions lottery. The jackpot was 355M, four of the 6 numbers drawn, matched Hurley's lottery numbers. There were 41,763 people who played that number and each person received $150.
In Dec. 2020 the African Powerball jackpot of 370K was won by 20 people with the numbers: 5-6-7-8-9-10. Lottery players cried fraud and an investigation took place.
Also 10K people play in the U.S. play the number 1-2-3-4-5-6 on a daily basis. To my knowledge this combination has never come out.
I agree with you, a lot of people play certain number combinations and it is not worth it to play these numbers and expect to get rich.
"the numbers: 5-6-7-8-9-10. Lottery players cried fraud and an investigation took place."
There's a small chance that 1 out of 20 might pick those numbers based on birthdays or something, but at least 19 had to have played them just because they were consecutive numbers. It takes a special kind of stupid to play numbers like that and cry fraud instead of figuring it out when you share the winnings with a bunch of other people.