Interesting case where four of the numbers on Lost (4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) came up in a big prize. What is more interesting to me is that maybe over 9,000 played them. (I say maybe because people only seem to be referencing the number of $150 winners by LOST creator’s Twitter.) Let’s say all 6 LOST numbers showed up in the lottery jackpot and 9,078 people played them. There is an important clause:
*Note: The jackpot prize will be divided equally among multiple jackpot winners. All other prizes are fixed amount, except as set forth below.
Therefore… $355,000,000 / 9,078 = $39,105.53
If instead you got the first five but missed the megaball, you would get $250,000. People might want to keep this kind of thing in mind when selecting numbers. You want to win, but you want to win with something no one else would play. I wonder if this will make people have second thoughts about playing a set of numbers so many others are now known to play?
Then again, people pool their numbers. The largest pool I’ve heard of was about 50 people coughing up $5 each.
P.S. People playing their special numbers religiously in the Georgia lottery put both me, my brother, and a number of my friends through college. So keep up the good work! Lots of kids need you to put them through college too. HOPE is underfunded, so play more so more deserving kids can get educated.