Exact Match

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The Numbers Game is a lottery game where you pick 4 digits and hope the numbers that are drawn match your choice, either in exact order or in any order. So, the four winning numbers in the midday drawing on Thursday, August 14 were, in order, 4821. The coincidence? If you placed a one dollar bet to get all four of those numbers in that exact order, you would've won exactly \$4821, i.e. the number drawn is an exact match to the prize amount. And just so we're clear, this is not how the prize money is determined, i.e. the amount won in dollars does not match the numbers drawn -- woe to the person who picks 0002 as their selection! So, this is a pretty wild result when you think about it. Most "exact 4" prizes range in the vicinity of \$4000 - \$6000 (with a few outliers), so it is possible (though with very low probability) that when the winning numbers start with 4, 5, or 6 that the prize could match the numbers drawn, in order. I do not know how the lottery determines the prize value for each draw, since it varies from one result to the next. Hence, I do not know how improbable this type of "exact match" situation is, but I do know that it is clearly a very rare event.
Total votes: 343
Date submitted:Sat, 16 Aug 2014 12:42:15 +0000Coincidence ID:7712