Fifteen hundred people split $3.4 million
Nearly fifteen hundred people split a $3.4 million lottery prize after picking all 2s as their lottery numbers.
Approximately 1,400 people in South Carolina are a couple of thousand dollars richer this week after they all played the same combination of winning lottery numbers in a record-breaking drawing.
The South Carolina Education Lottery is gifting a total of $3.4 million to almost 1,400 lucky winners. According to state officials, this was a record prize for the state’s Pick 4 lottery. Furthermore, every one of those winners picked the same number combination: 2-2-2-2.
The draw was on Saturday 28th Sept 2019. Dozens of winners were lined up at the state headquarters on Monday morning to claim their prize money. State officials tweeted a video showing the line of winners wrapping around the block.
(see video here: https://twitter.com/sclottery/status/1178714195631755266)
One of the winners played the 2-2-2-2 number combination 16 times on Saturday, which resulted in a total prize worth $80,000!
South Carolina is one of nine U.S. states that allow winners to remain anonymous.
Payouts vary per winner based on how much they paid for their Pick 4 tickets. Players can pay anywhere from 50 cents to $24 for a Pick 4 ticket. Higher prices result in better odds of winning. Most winners will receive anywhere between $2,500 and $5,000.
Additionally, the odds of winning a top prize from Pick 4 range from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 417.
Why did so many players pick all 2s on their tickets?
Some winners told lottery officials they’d been playing all 2s ‘for years’. One winner said she picked the numbers because her birthday is February 22 (aka 2/22).
Lottery experts say that playing the same numbers over and over again doesn’t improve your odds of eventually hitting a jackpot. Your odds of winning the lottery reset each time you play and so do the odds of a particular number combination being selected.
