Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Harris!!!!

I wonder how they allotted which grandchild to the megaball...after all, that made all the difference. Eh well...my time will come...come on powerball!

Congratulations to the lucky couple.

They will now lavish themselves in all that we all only dream of.

(I don't know about the GMC with the extended Cab)

SORRY!!!

litebets

It was birthday numbers....I was right...haha.  Congrats to them!

Brad

 A couple of years ago for a $280 million dollar jackpot it was a maid who only bought 1 ticket that was the winner.

Your right. I wonder how she's doing? I believe she was a single Mom with 5 children. I hope that she is doing well.

litebets

Congrats to the couple they are indeed lucky!

Wow that's awesome.. I've bought tix in South Georgia and said wow I started sweating I thought  that I had won.....but nothing only 10 bucks  I am cool now but will eventally win this year Jackpot...... I will Like a ROCK til then.....

Wow they talked to the media and waived the actual ticket around before they can even claim it?  How did the media even find out? 

Dang! I bought $35 worth of tickets and won only $6.

Small town where everyone knows everyone else, news travels fast ... speculation to conclusion even faster.   BTW welcome to LP!

Congratulations to them, totally awesome win!!!  Wish them the very best in all their endeavors!!!         

I love it when I read stories like this of people who win...... regular working class people that get a lil bit of luck that helps change their lives.

I notice the winning couple only spent 2 bucks and I spent 5 bucks for three draws my total was 15.00 and won 10.00 I stillhave one more drawing to go .... should I only do 1 buck a week or more cause the odds are totally against me... how many people spent a 1000 bucks and won nothing this couple spent 2 dollars  and won you do the math......  

he  was  an  Iron worker  they  do  alright  as  far  as  cash  is  concerned .....but  the  270 million  would  have  been  better  spent  by  me ;

0 of 20, me   :-(

They are lucky .  Cong !!!

but i love seeing a group of workers win big jackpot.  

Robert and Tonya Harris from Bulloch County, Georgia became millionaires Friday night when their Mega Millions numbers, 12, 22, 19, 7, 13, and mega number 10, were drawn.

Okay - now where are all those posts I've read about not playing all low numbers because you'll wind up splitting the jackpot with lots of other people?

My birthday is 19, my sister's birthday is 10, my Dad's is 7 ..... wait a minute.  They stole my numbers! 

Not only is it incredible that they hit MM with all low numbers considering the matrix, but as somone else pointed out, what made her pick the right birthday for the lower grid?

They played a $2 ticket so there was no wheel involved, yet of six birthdays she chooses the right one for the Mega Millions number.

LUCK.  

Yea, I was kinda shocked how open they were with the ticket & talking to the media so soon. 

Wow, so true.   I never really thought about that.  Yes, they used 6 birthdays and any one of them could have been the Mega Ball.   

Congratulations!

But they forgot the stay invisible.  Full names and  a clear national video of what they look like. " If you win it , they will come!

Congrats to them IF they really won.   They should have sought financial advice and turned in their ticket first before discussing it publicly.   IF they really won.

They showed the Ticket via the interview it look like the real deal to me   http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/02/23/ga.mega.millions.lotto.winner.wsav and you'll see the ticket wow he dont know what he's in for he's a brave man..... My hat is off to him and his family God bless them.

Cool video...

Good simple folks won. 

I wish he did some homework before going public.  Why put grandchildren in the video?

I'll bet he is not sleeping tonight guarding the ticket. 

I'm sure it's real. Hopefully, they won't have problems with beggers and scammers. They seem like a nice couple.

The woman from Lowell, MA if that's who you mean, must be doing OK because there are no horror stories about her that I know of; I notice that grandparents have better odds of winning on low number sets on self-picks because they have enough grandkids with ages in that number range to use those numbers in a 5+1. It didn't say whether a birthday was thought of for the 10, just it was randomly chosen for "October" (wedding anniv.? maybe?) also notice they didn't need 115 tickets, only 2 (like when I got the "5" that time) and no stinking Quick Pick either. I am just wary of the story saying she "will help anybody" - although that's a nice thing to say it's also extremely dangerous to say. Someone please lead her to this board? Quickly?

I am predicting, this Tuesday, maybe Friday, another Mega winner for < 20M, most likely from the Midwest.

Anyway, my Pocket PC program correctly picked the "10" on the Mega and the "32" on the Powerball but missed the other numbers.

I had 12 and 19... and mega 10

Congrats to Mr & Mrs Harris! Now you can do the things you only dreamed of!

Gooooood luck!!!

Hide now.   Take care!!!!!!!!!!!!

If they used the six birthdates from oldest to youngest, the baby of the group's birthday by default would be the mega ball.

"LUCK"

Of course, because they could have used the reverse order and the oldest's birthday would have been the mega ball and they would have a 4 - 0 winner for $150. All 6 birthdays matched the 6 winning numbers so they had a 1 of 6 chance of putting them in the correct order to match the mega ball. Any of the other 5 orders would give them a $150 win.

In the interview I saw, he said his daughter called and asked if he had played the grandkids' birthdays. They were probably watching TV, heard the jackpot was high, and mentioned playing those numbers. I'll bet the numbers on the other ticket were dates too.

We would have to see how many 5 + 0 and 4 + 1 winners to check the theory that all low numbers produce more winners. That effect might be true on 6/49 games but not so obvious on Mega or Powerball.

I think it's a pretty neat story and shows that it's possible for anybody hit the jackpot.

The couple opted for the cash option, bringing their winnings down to $164 million.

If they were smart, they would get a financial advisor now.  Even in relatively safe accounts, you can earn about 5% without thinking.  That would be 8.2 Million a year, and NEVER touching the principal.

love stories like these.especially when people pick their own numbers.wow 270 million......

The couple opted for the cash option, bringing their winnings down to $164 million....

LOL!!!         bringing their winnings DOWN to $164 million....

i'd love to bring mine down to 164 million!

The jackpot was $164 so their only choice was if they wanted the lottery to buy them a 26 year $270 million annuity.  How do you know they won't parlay what they get after taxes into $500 million?

"If they were smart, they would get a financial advisor now."

Unless they are planning on turning all of it into cash and stuffing their mattresses, they will get plenty of financial advice. I wonder what kind of advice a financial advisor would give them before spending the 2 bucks to play their grandkids' birthdays. They could get 10 cents on that $2 without thinking.

Congratulations to the winners, however I wouldn't want to go public before claiming the jackpot. All that media right in front of their house letting the world know who it was that won, and I'm sure the neighbors were hitting them up for money the second they heard the words "lottery winners". I don't have a problem going public at the time of claiming, but not before. All that ticket is, is a fragile piece of paper.

Must be nice. I bought $5 in tickets for powerball and got 4 of 5 for $100. I was pissed though, thought it was all clicking then it stopped. One more number $200,000! Or the powerball for $10,000, and both number the jackpot! That sucked worse than getting no numbers!

 Congrats to the Couple They are going to have lots new friends very quickly . Well I guess you win some and then you lose a lot thats how it goes with me I also used birthday numbers but unfortunately  I didnt have anyone with the number 12  or the mega ball 10  so I guess I will settle for $100

"We would have to see how many 5 + 0 and 4 + 1 winners to check the theory that all low numbers produce more winners. That effect might be true on 6/49 games but not so obvious on Mega or Powerball."

I'd suggest that the effect should be more obvious with MM and PB. The larger the matrix, the more the distribution will be skewed if people are more likely to choose birthday numbers than other numbers. At the extreme, every combination in a 5/31 game uses all birthday numbers. For a 6/49 game 5.3% of the combinations can be made with birthday numbers. For MM it's only 3%. Since a smaller percentage of combinations are from birthday numbers, any increase in winners when the results are all birthday numbers is more significant.

Does anybody really think that using birthdays (or ages of children and grandchildren, which will also skew the numbers towards the low end) isn't one of the ways that people choose what numbers to play? I'd figure the only real question is how much that  increases the percentage of tickets with low numbers. Here are the results for the last two MM drawings.

Tickets sold        all 5 white balls         4+1           4+0
(millions)
102.7                     43                      245           9478
  77.4                     15                        85           4456

The last drawing sold 1.33 times as many tickets as the previous drawing, but there were almost 3 times as many  matches for 5 balls and 4+1, and just over twice as many for 4+0.  The results of the previous drawing were at the high end of the matrix, so perhaps that reduced the number of winners we would have seen with a more uniform distribution. I'd say the 4+0 results  strongly suggest that birthday numbers are played about twice as often as random combinations. If 70% of tickets are QP that doubling comes from only 30% of the tickets.

Why is it "incredible that they hit MM with all low numbers considering the matrix"?

As Lucky Larry speculated, they chose the MB of 10 for October, but the article I saw suggested that there wasn't any specific reason for choosing it. Since they apparently had only 5 birthdays to choose from they were guaranteed at least 5+0, given the results.

Dang I know what you mean getting so close and not winning the Jackpot... just ask the New England Patriots the same thing,,,, you know what you was closer than maybe alot of people that played Powerball... hang in there the last time I was that close was 1997 5 of 6 numbers in flalottery for 18 million I won only  1,267.00 that was it but I was happy for a few minutes and then started kicking myself

I agree. Luck played a big part. Joe

KY Floyd

Why was it incredible they hit with all low numbers?

The numbers were 7 12 13 19 22, Mega 10 

In a game with an upper matrix of 56 how many times do you think that all the numbers drawn have been no higher than 22?

If I paid you a dollar for every time that happened, would you be willing to pay me a dollar for every drawing that produced a number higher than 22? I'd even let you include before the matrix expanded.  

I'll let you do the search, drawing by drawing.... 

MAVEN U. always omnipresent on LP.  

I meant a 6/49 game should have more multiple jackpot winners than Mega Millions when all the numbers are under 32. People that use birthdates are less likely to box their numbers in either game and even with all 6 numbers, having the correct mega ball is 1 chance in 6. They will either win the jackpot or have 4 + 0 and win $150. 

Dividing the total ticket sales by 3.9 million gives a ballpark figure of how many 5 + 0 prize winners there should be. It would around 26 in this drawing so there was a 56% chance the jackpot would be hit. I wonder if anybody else matched all 6 numbers but didn't have them in the correct order where 10 was the mega ball.

CONGRAT'$$$$$$

UR the BEST>>>>>

LOL

PSYKOMO 

South Georgia (COPULE???)

TELL us  what UR "R" GOING to DO??????????????????????????

PSYKOMO>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LU'$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$"YOU"!

PLEASE>>>>>>>IISTEN>>>>>>>>>>Too>>>>>>>

THE FABRIC   >>>

"THE">"FABRIC"

THANK'$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

LOL

PSYKOMO 

You're asking the wrong questions, so you get the wrong answers.  Think about this question: is there any reason at all that the winning combination was less likely to be drawn than any *one* of the other 175 million combinations? Perhaps you've heard that they only draw one winning combination?

The winning numbers are whatever they are, and every time they draw a set of winning numbers the result is the only combination that can be made from the 5 regular numbers and the 1 mega number that are drawn. The number of combinations using only 22 numbers (no matter how you choose them) is much smaller than the number of combinations using  56 numbers, but that has nothing to do with your chances of winning. Having a combination that has a pattern or distribution similar to the winning numbers doesn't win you squat.

If you pay me a dollar every time the winning combination has no number above 22 and I pay you a dollar every time you pick the winning combination, which one of us will come out ahead?

Since the duplications are concentrated in only 3% of combinations for MM and 5.3% of the combinations in a 6/49 game we should expect more multiple winners in MM, assuming each game sells the same percentage of combinations.  Selling more tickets makes any game more likely to produce more winners at every prize level.

If there were no duplicate combinations (and we know there were a lot) the 103 million tickets sold would have accounted for almost 59% of the combinations, so we could expect a 59% chance of a winner. Since we know there will always be a lot of duplicates, and a concentration of birthday numbers, far less than 59% of combinations were sold. That means that there would be far less than a 59% chance of a winner. Once the wining numbers were drawn, OTOH, that same concentration of birthday numbers made the chance of a winner more than 59%.

I agree with Coin Toss.   Even though any combination of numbers can win, seeing all low numbers like this is extremely rare.  I don't track PB or MM, but I can't find a single combination in FL that doesn't have one number in the 30s, 40s or 50s.  I just glanced at all the winning Lotto combinations picked so far this year, the 104 picked in 2007 and the 104 picked in 2006, the 104 picked in 2005 --- and I can't even find one!  Plus, keep in mind that our state Lotto has less than 1 in 23 million odds, not 1 in 176 million! 

We have a similar game to MM that is called MegaMoney.  Instead of 5 there are 4 balls (1-44) and 1 MB (1-22)  The odds are "only" 1 in 2,986,522 and most picks have at least 1 number in the 30s or 40s.  There have been a few combinations with all low numbers, but the game is twice a week and there are only a few each year.

Therefore, picking 5 numbers for Mega Millions, all being 22 or less, then picking the correct Megaball number, that also being 10 or less ...  I would say that's very remarkable!     Very, very, very lucky too. 

KY Floyd

In the "Statistics Method" thread in thos forum RJOh posted:

"Since its last matrix change, MegaMillions alone have had seven drawings where all the numbers were 31 or less.

 09/27/05  - 14 17 26 27 28 +05
 11/08/05  - 08 16 21 25 27 +16
 03/21/06  - 04 16 17 28 31 +08
 04/10/07  - 07 15 16 19 28 +10
 06/15/07  - 01 05 16 26 30 +21
 06/22/07  - 11 14 21 24 31 +23
 02/22/08  - 07 12 13 19 22 +10 "

Then I added:

Ok, guesses on the number of drawings for the remainder of '05, butfiguring 2 for Sep of '05, 4 for Oct, 4 for Nov, and 5 for Dec

that makes '05 ((27-12-31)  15

'06 104

'07  104

thus far in '08  16

That makes 239 drawings, 7 of those had all numbers 31 or less.

7/239 = .029%

97.1% of those drawings had numbers over 31.

I think I'd "play the percentages". 

________________________________________ 

The 2.9% of drawings with all the numbers 31 and under compare to the 97.1% of the time speaks for itself. Volumes.

As for the paying each other a dollar, the hypothetical situation was strictly all 31 and under or not, not picking the winning combination.  Nice atteempt at a cyber version NYC 3-card monte street hustel, but the results above tell me that for every$3 I'd have to give you, you would have to give me $97.

"That makes 239 drawings, 7 of those had all numbers 31 or less.

7/239 = .029%"

2.988% of the possible combinations in MM can be made with the numbers up to 31. Assuming you didn't miss one, or add one that fits the category it's  actually rather surprising that the actual results are so close to theory.

For a while your posts have included the tag line that close doesn't count. How does it help you to "play the percentages" when close doesn't count? To win you have to get the right numbers, not just ones that are close or have the same sort of distribution. What would having a similar combination do to improve your chances?

You think that the percentage of combinations made of birthday numbers is significant , but look at the combinations that actually do win. Pick one and see how many times that combination has been drawn previously. Do the same for any other winning combination, and all of the combinations you've ever played. The percentages always said those combinations wouldn't win. Then do it for any given mega ball. In the last 279 drawings one megaball has been drawn more than any other, at about 3.94% of the time. Since you're going with the percentages I suppose you'd choose your megaball from the ones that have accounted for 96% of the winning combinations.

The way the game works is that you have to pick specific combinations. Even if the combination you pick is 1,2,3,4,5+6, the chances that it will be drawn are exactly the same as any other specific combination, whether it consists only of birthday numbers or of any random mix that covers the full range.

Actually, the combination  1 2 3 4 5 +6  had 10 hits since the matrix changed.

 01/15/08   21 30 42 44 50   +06
 11/20/07   14 20 23 42 43   +06
 10/16/07   01 02 05 41 44   +25
 09/11/07   09 10 17 21 35   +06
 04/06/07   24 32 34 36 39   +06
 03/27/07   18 25 34 35 42   +06
 01/05/07   02 12 44 46 51   +06
 08/22/06   03 04 05 07 36   +16
 04/18/06   13 14 25 34 50   +06
 11/15/05   02 04 05 40 48   +07

That's better than the overall odds of getting a hit and probably better than most combinations that have never won a jackpot.

He won 275 Million not 270 million.

Congrats -  Way to Go !!! 

Wish I could have seen them when they won !!!    It's almost like winning.

Lee

did they go into witness protection did any heard anything about they picking up their fame day at the lotto office in Ga I was just curious... I want a picture so I can cut out their face and put me and my wife face on there body.....LOL

ok... I found it nice picture of the winners 

http://www.galottery.com/stc/mediacenter/pressDetail.jsp?id=5036181