Phoenix-area man hits $1 million jackpot six times

Published - May 10 2012 07:22PM EST

Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — A suburban Phoenix man made a lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky guess in a recent multistate lottery game.

An Arizona Lottery spokeswoman says the Glendale man claimed six $1 million prizes after purchasing six Powerball tickets with the same winning numbers late last month.

The tickets were good for a half dozen second-place prizes. And he picked up his $6 million in winnings over the course several visits to the Arizona Lottery's headquarters in Phoenix.

Lottery spokeswoman Karen Bach says the man doesn't want his identity released.

lucky guy x 6

Actually, he just got lucky once with the same 6 numbers.

Why would anybody play the same numbers?

I would do a quick investigation. Since he got second place on all of them, I would see if his seventh number was the same, and what happened (if anything) to that number while the numbers were being drawn?

DonDiego doesn't understand the question posed by Roulette Man.

The game of PowerBall comprises selecting 5 numbers between 1 and 59 (white balls) and a single power-ball number between 1 and 35 (red balls).

From the PowerBall website: "The second prize (won by matching five white balls in any order) is $1,000,000 paid in cash." (n.b.The second prize does not change based upon more players playing or a prize-carryover; it is a constant $1,000,000 for each drawing if one selects the first 5. Perhaps the term "second-place" is inappropriate, as there can be many "second-places" in each drawing.)

So the gentleman from Phoenix chose the same first-5 numbers on 6 different tickets. DonDiego does not know if he played the same power-ball (i.e.red ball) number or 6 different power-ball numbers; in either case, none of his power-ball selections hit.

There is no seventh number.

Roulette Man did not know that Don Diego was such an expert on playing the lottery, because Roulette Man knows that the lottery is a total sucker's game. While the premise that Roulette Man brought forward regarding the number of balls was wrong as pointed out by Don Diego, the basic premise of RM still stands, except take away one ball from the total picks and look at the person's power ball number. Did some event take place during the drawing that possibly changed the outcome?

DonDiego is still not sure exactly what Roulette Man is driving at.

The Phoenician had six tickets with the identical 5-white-ball selections. Therefore he won six $1-million prizes.

The gentleman did not have the correct single-red-powerball on any of the six tickets. If he had the correct red-powerball, he'd've won the multi-million-dollar Jackpot. If he had had the same correct red-powerball number multiple times, he would not have won multiple Jackpots; but his share of a multi-winner Jackpot would be greater than a single-ticket winner's share depending on how many multiple winners he had.

What possible event during the drawing that could change the outcome is Roulette Man referring to?

You are correct. Don Diego does not understand what RM is getting at, and RM is wondering if Don Diego is slipping? RM is implying that it is unheard of for someone to have multiple lottery tickets with the same numbers. RM is stating that there may have been cheating and that a quick investigation should be done to see if something took place that may have altered the selection of the power ball.

DonDiego may well be slipping; it is not unlikely that he would be the last to notice.

DonDiego rarely plays the lotteries, but he will invest when the Jackpot is extremely high. On those occasions he himself has played multiple lottery tickets with the same numbers except for different PowerBalls.
(When the Jackpot was a record a few weeks ago, DonDiego invested $91. He won $7, for a net loss of $84.
He re-invested the $7 on two $2-scratch-offs and three $1-scratch-offs. One $2-scratch-off won a "free ticket"; one $1-scratch-off won $100.
He cashed in the $100 winner. He picked up a free $2-scratch-off. It lost.
Net: DonDiego invested $91 and walked off with $100 for a net-win of $9 and a bundle-full-o-fun scratching tickets over the last few weeks.)

But DonDiego digresses. The PowerBall drawings are held publicly. They are well policed. The balls and equipment are checked often for tampering. Cheating has been rare. In fact, DonDiego can recall only one instance of tampering, and that was on a daily drawing of 3 single-digit balls in Pennsylvania.
It is difficult to see how the Lottery officials could alter the drawing of the red-ball immediately after the drawing of the five white-balls.
Or why. If the Phoenician had, in fact, won the BIG JACKPOT, he'd've only won one; and the lottery would've re-set for the following week. By NOT hitting the red-ball he won six second-prizes; since this is a fixed-prize-amount not dependent on the number of tickets sold, the six winners may have had a larger negative statistical impact on the payoffs than someone winning the Jackpot. The lottery profits itself and State Governments by retaining a specific percentage of all revenues bet; who wins and when doesn't matter.