Fans of ‘Lost’ Win $150 in Tuesday’s MegaMillions… But Does It Hint At Something More?
The winning numbers in yesterday’s MegaMillions lottery, with a $355 million jackpot, are:
Now, if you’re a fan of the TV show Lost, you are familiar with the mythology of the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, which (among other things) were the winning lottery numbers for Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, netting him $114 million.
As a result, a lot of people play those numbers. And if you picked those numbers last night, you would have had 4 out of 6 numbers, netting you $150… almost the exact price to pick up Lost: The Complete Collection
on DVD. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
The odds of picking those numbers are 1 in 13,781, (or (56!/(3!*(56-3)!))*46 out of (56!/(5!*(56-5)!))*46 if you want to do the math). The question arises, however: how many players play the Lost numbers? 1 out of 10000? 1 out of 5000? 1 out of 1000?
Based on 25,587 reported winners last night, it turns out that payout for that combination was about 42% (there’s that number again… surely another coincidence) higher than expected, or around 7200 extra winning tickets, for a total of… $1.08 million.
108? All right, now it’s getting a bit weird.