Lottery officials suspected fraud when an unprecedented 110 people won the second prize in the New York Powerball lottery.
Depending on the bet, each winner raked in between $100,000 and $500,000 -- costing the lottery association nearly $19 million it had not counted on paying out. It made for an expensive night for Powerball, with winners beating the odds in a game with a 1 in 3 million winning combination.
However, the reason for there being so many winenrs was far less sinister, though all the more amazing.
It became apparent that the winners all had one things in common - they had eaten a fortune cookie and used the numbers inside on their lottery tickets!
The culprit and maker of the guilty cookies was the Wonton Food company in Queens, NY, that produce 4 millions cookies a day and often repeat the fortune message and numbers in various cookies.
The winners chose the numbers 22, 28, 32, 33, 39, 40. Had they chosen 42 instead of 40 they would have won the jackpot... and actually won less money as the jackpot is a shared sum.
(Washington Post)
While on the subject of fortune cookies - they were actually invented in California, not China. In fact, the Chinese have no idea what they are, as this video shows:
Labels: James G