Numbers drawn corresponded to patterns on play slips
By Kate Northrop
There was an unusually large number of winners in last night's Powerball drawing, including Indiana and Kansas winners who split the $143.4 million jackpot, and 89 tickets that won the $1 million second-tier prize.
Wednesday's Powerball drawing was a frenzy, with 89 winners across the US raking in a second-tier prize and two jackpot winners sharing a $143.4 million jackpot.
The April 29 draw produced results 3, 19, 35, 51, and 67, with red Powerball number 15. The Power Play number was 2.
But what makes those numbers so popular? One might take a look at a Powerball play slip for an answer.
It has to do with the layout of numbers on a play slip. For example, in Indiana, the state that boasts the highest number of second-tier prize winners at 19 and one of the jackpot winners, the Hoosier Lottery's Powerball play slip lines every white ball number next to one another in a vertical column. The same goes for New Jersey, which recorded 18 second-tier prize winners.
In other words, it just comes down to how many players decided fill out their play slip by making a pattern of filled-in dots on the paper.
Each state has its own version of a play slip that may differ from the ones available in neighboring jurisdictions. One example is Missouri's, which displays the numbers in such a way that they run in a continuous diagonal line. Missouri had one second-tier prize winner last night.
The jackpot-winning ticket in Indiana was sold at Al's Supermarket on East Lincolnway in La Porte. The Kansas Lottery does not release information pertaining to the retailer that sold the jackpot-winning ticket.
Splitting the jackpot two ways, that makes each ticket worth $71.7 million.
Kansas state law allows lottery winners to claim prizes anonymously, and while Indiana technically does not allow one to do so, it is possible to claim prizes under an LLC or a trust. Lottery Post maintains a state-by-state guide to anonymity laws across the USA and some other nations.
In total, 89 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1 million prize: 2 from Arkansas, 1 from Arizona, 1 from California, 1 from Georgia, 4 from Illinois, 19 from Indiana, 6 from Kansas, 1 from Kentucky, 11 from Louisiana, 1 from Michigan, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from Missouri, 1 from Mississippi, 2 from Nebraska, 18 from New Jersey, 4 from Oregon, 7 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Rhode Island, 1 from South Carolina, and 6 from Wisconsin.
Out of all the second-prize tickets, 27 tickets sold in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Wisconsin were purchased with the Power Play option, doubling their prizes to $2 million.
When a Powerball ticket is purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per ticket, a second-prize win is doubled and any other non-jackpot prize is multiplied by the Power Play number drawn that evening. A complete list of prizes available for matching various numbers can be found on the Powerball Drawing Detail page at USA Mega, as well as on the Powerball Prize Payouts and the Powerball Double Play Prize Payouts pages at Lottery Post.
The official drawing videos can also be found on the Powerball Drawing Detail page at USA Mega.
The Power Play option is not available in California, because the fixed nature of the prize increase offered with the Power Play is not compatible with California's pari-mutuel payouts.
The Wednesday Double Play drawing results were 7, 52, 56, 67, and 69, with Powerball number 3. Double Play is a game option currently available in 22 states plus Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands that lets you play your numbers in a second drawing for an extra $1 per play, with a chance to win up to $10 million in cash. See How to Play Powerball at USA Mega for more information about Double Play.
The next Powerball drawing will take place Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time with the jackpot amount reset to its starting point of $20 million.
Powerball is currently offered for sale in 45 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com). The USA Mega Web site provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.
To all those with crazy conspiracy theories,
Here's proof that the drawing is random and doesn't depend on how many people are actually playing.
This is totally insane in a good way. Many winning records must have been broken in many states. Multiple millionaires created in multiple states in one day. This is how I've always pictured the lottery to work . This will help put some of the naysayers to bed. Congrats to all the winners. This is historic .
Top 10 Total 5 + 0 Wins
If they choose Power Play then yes. If they didn't chose Power Play then no. Taxes, taxes, taxes...
An official explanation of how and why it happened would be nice to know.
But to my mind, the big question is will the individual state prize pools have a sufficient amount of funds available to pay $115 million? (total across all states that participate in PB with a set second prize) to pay all second place prize winners either 1 million, or if the player bought the Power Play option, $2 million.
My guess is that some states will have adequate funding to cover the full second prize pay out, while others wont. Those that don't have sufficient funding will most likely resort to parimutuel pay outs. G5
If we keep winning like this, the lottery suits will start crying and ticket prices will be bumped up to $10.00 or more.
This is very interesting. No 2nd prize winners from Texas? What's up with this?
Full History of Powerball & Mega Millions can be found at our web pages:
http://www.jadexcode.com/PB-History-00.html
http://www.jadexcode.com/MM-History-00.html
The Texas Powerball play slip does not have the pattern that other state winners used to win. It all comes down to how the white balls are organized for selection on the powerball slip for your individual state.
Wow..what a Blessing, congratulations 🎊 💐
Congrats to those winners. Rarity to see that many 2nd prize PB winners even during the billion dollar & up PB jackpots.
* Nothing like getting something back from the lottery.
The fact you have to post this is telling because i don't see anyone mentioning conspiracies; who do you work for the lottery? There has never been this many winners from a small drawing ever. Its only the very large ones that have these amount of winners because of the sheer amount of tickets purchased. This drawing smells like a big fat rat from a mile away; no wonder less and less people are buying tickets.
Once again New York a high volume in sales was not included in the winnings
So are dozens of other states including Michigan. What's your point?
This is C R A Z Y but I totally understand the pattern explanation.
I also wonder how many liverwurst or oliveloaf sandwiches were eaten before those winning tickets were bought?
And consequently how many more of the aforementioned sandwiches will be eaten before the next big drawing?
Have a shaggy day!
ShagE3
Mentioning a conspiracy while claiming no conspiracy is just pure irony.
If you'd spent enough time on the website you'd have seen dozens of them every time jackpot gets big. Just recently with someone claiming all the jackpots coming from one county in Michigan.
I agree with you on one thing. There has never been so many second tier winners on a small jackpot. And if you'd read the article you'd understand the reason behind it. It's the way the playslips are for a lot of the states. All the white balls line up. Makes sense people being subconsciously biased towards that.
It's interesting that states may have to put some thought in how they arrange numbers on their play slips to eliminate pattern selections if they don't have in place rules protecting themselves with parimutuel payouts for large payouts.
I kind of remember Texas All or Nothing https://www.lotterypost.com/news/262005 having similar issues where they needed to add parimutuel to the rules for large payouts. Even though the article does not mention it I believe their play slips allowed you to select all even, all odd, all low, or all high which made it easy for the player to play a patttern by only filling in one of these circles. I could be misremembering or it was a different state.
I am super curious if these where quick picks. Or people picked the numbers..........
The reason for this unusual # of winners is not the layout of the slip but the winning numbers being straight down on some of those arrangements. And since each drawing is independent of the others with each combination having the exact same probability, any pattern, if it's been shared by multiple states has the potential for a similar scenario.
This won't happen in our life time again. Congrats
I wonder now ....,.
Hmmmm two jackpot winners ... eighty something runnerups ....,. could this have something to do with the asparagus I ate last Sunday that was served by a bald waiter wearing a terrible toupe?
Or could this strange occurrence be attributed to the lobster Mac and cheese I wolfed down on Monday ?
Have a shaggy day?
ShagE3
Good thing it's not an RNG game or those patterns would now be deleted to prevent them from hitting again.
I hope they don't get greedy and creative, and put a limit on the maximum number of 2nd tier prices that can be won thereby making it parimutuel.
They already are. Read the rules for your state.
Maybe you should have read the article. It was the patterns on certain states slips that caused it.
That information is not available anywhere is it?
a suggestion for todd and kate, if you have time to find pictures of powerball payslips for every state, i think you should do a follow up story to show how the numbers 3, 19, 35, 51, and 67 line up on all the different states' payslips. according to the discussion in the other forum, in some states they go down in a straight line, in some they're at a diagonal, and in some they're not lined up at all. i think that would explain why some states had a lot more second place winners than others.
Just cause it's patterns doesn't necessarily mean it was play slips. So was what was typed an opinion or fact?
It would be cool to see them all in one place. Here's the NJ one we mentioned in the article.
I find VERY hard to believe these states don't have enough funds to pay out. This wasn't a billion dollar each, so for a few million they should be good to go.
Not even with the big jackpots we've ever seen so many winners. This is wild and I agree, someone didn't do its job to keep those white balls under control, or there was a glitch and the same combination was thrown out too many times. Idk, but I'd say this is a good reason for the lottery to investigated. Not only they are not 'holding' the jackpots to a billion dollars anymore, but all of the sudden California is not that lucky. So this debunks the bs theory of 'lots of players in one place' increases the chances for that spot to have more winners.
This really reeks, and Idk why you got down voted when your comment makes perfect sense.
If an investigation is open (which it should be a must), we could figure it out.
you are walking at night in an area known for raccoons and you hear a noise in the bushes. do you think it is equally likely that the noise came from a raccoon as from a velociraptor?
someone else hearing the noise might say "that's probably a raccoon," which is an opinion, but it's an opinion based on knowledge of how the world works. someone saying "it could be a velociraptor" is also expressing an opinion, but not a very good one.
"Here's proof that the drawing is random "
This drawing is probably proof that plenty of people play patterns, and certain proof that certain numbers coming up results in a number of winners that's only random in that whatever factor caused them to choose their numbers happened to match one of the combinations in the small subset of combinations that match the possible patterns.
"No 2nd prize winners from Texas? What's up with this? "
CA, NY, and TX all have slips that don't let you choose the winning numbers with anything a normal person would call a pattern. It's very likely that the CA winner was a QP that simply happened to match 5+0.
"There has never been this many winners from a small drawing ever. "
The 3/30/05 PB drawing sold about 8.5% more tickets and had 110 5+0 winners because some fortune cookies happened to have those numbers. The odds were a good bit lower then, so in terms of proportion of 5+0 winners it is lower. The point is that there's a very logical reason why this was a natural, if unusual, result but it can' get through your tin foil hat.
"states may have to put some thought in how they arrange numbers on their play slips to eliminate pattern selections "
It's impossible to eliminate patterns unless the little boxes are placed randomly. Changing the grid just changes the numbers in the patterns. About the best that could be done would be to use only 1 or 2 long lines for the numbers. That would get rid of straight and diagonal lines, but people could still play consecutive numbers, multiples, and (probably much less common) uniform skips.
"It would be cool to see them all in one place. Here's the NJ one we mentioned in the article. "
That really puzzles me. NJ had 1.6 times as many winners as LA. LA had much lower sales, and the pattern on their slip is vertical but skips every other row. You need to skip rows in order to use both the first and last row, but I'm guessing that LA players must choose that pattern at several times the rate NJ players use any vertical pattern. Skipping is obviously a pattern, but I think people would be more likely to pick a pattern when it doesn't skip rows or columns.
"Just cause it's patterns doesn't necessarily mean it was play slips. "
It's theoretically possible that some other common factor was the cause, but let's hear your ideas on what the factor was and how it caused a couple of small states that (together) probably sold 1 or perhaps 2% of all tickets but CA, NY and TX sold about 25% and only had one winner between them?
"If an investigation is open "
It will uncover your closet full of Reynold's Wrap?
Maryland's PowerBall slip is the opposite - longer length-wise so the numbers DO NOT LINE UP and thus no winners from Maryland. If this is the case (that most players just made a straight line on the card) its hilarious and I am VERY happy for the many winners
But 89 2nd place prize winning tickets doesn't happen until now
When I got up around 1 a.m. and saw the results from that drawing I immediately sent a news tip to Kat & Todd. Not all states have Double Play, so who knows what that paid with that drawing.
It happened January 13, 2016. 91 players each won $1 million or more.
Whatever Dude, you are probably one of the ones who are ALWAYS complaining about California always winning the jackpot. Now Kansas and Indiana split the jackpot with a bunch of other states getting 2nd and 3rd prize and YOU still complain. No one is forcing you to play the lottery, stop playing and quit complaining because people here do NOT want to hear it/read it. FYI, Indiana has won more Powerball jackpots than any other state, with 40 wins but NO one ever complains about that state. People are always boo-hooing about California which only has 17 wins. California is looking to catch up to Indiana, now that California has more lottery vending machines in more places than any other state in the US.
Look at row 5 on the slip for a clue. Hundreds of people pick a row and do this or play another type of pattern on those slips. It is a fluke but it came in on row 5 this time. I guarantee you if row 6, 8, or 2 numbers matched there would have been multiple winners also.
not sure why so many people can't accept the most obvious explanation.
then again, we have a member who believes the lottery has been stalking him for 10 years...
look again. the nj pattern is all in a row with no skips.
Again that's your opinion. I just asked a simple question that required a simple answer.