ISRAEL’S WEEKLY state lottery draw on Saturday drew exactly the same six numbers as the draw three weeks earlier – an event statisticians said was a one-in-four-trillion chance.
Some 125 people guessed the right numbers, but three lucky punters who also correctly guessed the seventh “strong” number each won €800,000.
The numbers that rolled out during the live television broadcast on Saturday night were 36, 33, 32, 26, 14, 13, and the additional “strong” number 2. It did not take long for some viewers to notice these were exactly the ones drawn in the September 21st lottery. The winning numbers then were 13, 14, 26, 32, 33 and 36 – chosen, coincidentally, in the exact reverse order.
Radio stations were flooded with callers yesterday who suspected the draw was rigged. But, as expected, these allegations were denied by officials from Mifal HaPayis, Israel’s national lottery company. “We are in the business of luck, and when it comes to chances and probabilities anything is possible, even the rare and infrequent,” said Dr Chaim Melamed, its statistics expert.
Lottery officials said they were aware of cases from around the world where the same person won the top prize more than once. However, they were not aware of an example of a lottery drawing exactly the same set of six numbers.
Yitzhak Melechson, at the University of Tel Aviv, said the incident of six numbers repeating themselves within a month is an event of once in 10,000 years.