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from the what-if-it-were-in-the-Eastern-part-of-the-state dept.
Man wins $7 million in lottery after buying every single ticket:
Kevin Clark, from Candler in North Carolina, had a hunch that the top $US5 million ($A7 million) prize in the Mega Cash scratch-off game would be won in the western part of the state.
So he came up with an unusual strategy to ensure he got his hands on the lucky ticket – by travelling from store to store and buying every ticket he could find.
Mr Clark spent four hours on his quest to purchase every $20 Mega Cash scratchie ticket he came across in around 40 different stores.
And while it is not known how much he spent in total, it’s safe to say he came out on top after a ticket he bought from a Stop N Go outlet in Swannanoa, North Carolina ended up being the winner.
[...] In the end he decided to pocket a $US3 million ($A4.2 million) lump sum instead of taking the $US5 million as an annuity of $US250,000 ($A350,267) per year for two decades.
After taxes, he was left with a total cash prize of around $US2.1 million ($A2.94 million).
“I had a real good feeling it was going to be in the western part of the state,” Mr Clark said, according to the NC Education Lottery.
However, he said he was still stunned when his tactic paid off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by istartedi on Monday August 10 2020, @07:36AM
I'm kind of with you here. Believe it or not, there are lottery geeks. I remember reading about a mathematician and his daughter who found a flaw in scratch-offs, used it to win a few modest prizes, and reported the flaw to lottery officials. IIRC, they were Indian immigrants. Anybody else remember that?
In this case, the guy may have been keeping track of wins and like you said might have come to the conclusion that the lottery was designed to distribute winners by region or something. Then, if the tickets had been on sale long enough and still not hit... it seems like there would be an incentive for lotteries to distribute the winners late in the series, but I'm not sure how they could do that without having too much knowledge. The only fair way to do that would be some kind of statistical distribution that *favors* late winners, but still makes it possible for the first ticket to be a winner.
And yes, there is corruption and/or cheating in lotteries too.
Otherwise, this really is just dumb luck and in most of the alternative universes he has "hit bottom" as a problem gambler.
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