Identical Numbers Win Lottery Weeks Apart

Do you have "lucky" lottery numbers - the ones you write down week after week, hoping that loyalty to your chosen digits will eventually pay off? Have you ever questioned the wisdom of this strategy of consistency? Whether or not this approach really boosts your chances of a jackpot, you might be heartened by this story of a recent Saturday night lottery draw...

Identical Jackpot Numbers

On October 16, Israeli lottery fans were dumbfounded to see six numbers come up that were identical to the winning numbers drawn on September 21 - just a few weeks before. The numbers-6, 33, 32, 26, 14 and 13-emerged in a different order, but that didn't lessen the astonishment after the massive coincidence was pointed out.

128 Winners

Three lucky people split the jackpot prize of over $3 million, while 92 second place winners pocketed "consolation" prizes of just over $1000 each, and 33 winners in the double category got approximately $2,200. The number of secondary prizes won was unusually high. It's not known if any of the winners had picked exactly the same numbers in the September draw.

Crazy Coincidences

Such coincidences are extremely unusual, but they happen more often than you might expect. Just this year, OCR has reported on some unique incidents in the unpredictable world of lotteries...

• In July, Joan Ginther of Austin, Texas, USA, won the lottery for an incredible fourth time in 17 years. Her latest prize was $10,000,000; won on a $50 scratch card. She has notched up an unbelievable $20 million in lottery wins since 1993.
• In September, another American lottery fan, Ernest Pullen, of Missouri, bagged his second massive lottery win within just four months. Between June and October he went from ordinary to guy to multimillionaire - his first scratch card landing him a tidy $1 million, with the second card bringing in a further $2,000,000.