Santa Claus arrived two days late for a lucky someone who stopped by the Thorntons store at 5318 Preston Highway on Monday and paid $5 for five plays on the Kentucky Lottery's Cash Ball.
In what lottery officials described as a relatively unusual maneuver, the person picked the same numbers on all five plays: 11, 14, 21, 24 and, for the Cash Ball, 22.
Those five numbers were drawn Monday night, earning the lucky player a whopping $1 million from the five $200,000 top Cash Ball prizes.
The odds of matching all five numbers are one in 1,268,520, said lottery spokesman Chip Polston.
He said lottery officials had no concerns about the security of the lottery or the validity of the tickets.
Cash Ball, which is played only in Kentucky, involves four balls drawn from a machine containing 33 balls, and a Cash Ball drawn from a second machine with 31.
The winner didn't show up yesterday at lottery headquarters in Louisville to claim the payoff.
Managers at the Thorntons said they couldn't speak for publication without corporate permission but acknowledged that they weren't sure who held the lucky tickets. Lottery winners have 180 days to claim prizes.
The store will get a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning tickets, Polston said.
The $1million "is the largest single payout" in the history of Cash Ball, Polston said.
The game started in March 2001.
Cash Ball sales statewide totaled $19.7 million last fiscal year, with about 60 percent of the proceeds returned to players in prize money, Polston said. All five Cash Ball numbers were matched only 17 times last fiscal year, he said.
Although Polston wasn't certain if one player had ever held two winning Cash Ball tickets for the same drawing, no one previously ever came close to hitting the winning numbers as many as five times on the same day, he said.
The lottery will automatically withhold 31 percent of the $1 million payout to cover the 25 percent federal and 6 percent state taxes, with the winner possibly subject to additional taxes depending on income, Polston said.
First of all, why in the heck would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers? And why would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers on the day they were picked? Seems fishy to me.....
Q:First of all, why in the heck would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers?
A: A person would probably do that in an attempt to win five times the amount of money. In this case, it worked. It's not an uncommon strategy. I've even done it myself in various types of games. I've seen people play the same P3 or P4 number straight twenty or more times in the same drawing.
Q:And why would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers on the day they were picked?
A: Actually, the numbers were drawn on the same day that person bought those five identical lines. I'd guess that the person plays his or her numbers like that routinely. I see nothing at all fishy about it.
First of all, why in the heck would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers? And why would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers on the day they were picked? Seems fishy to me.....
Q: First of all, why in the heck would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers?
A: A person would probably do that in an attempt to win five times the amount of money. In this case, it worked. It's not an uncommon strategy. I've even done it myself in various types of games. I've seen people play the same P3 or P4 number straight twenty or more times in the same drawing.
Q: And why would someone buy 5 lines of the same numbers on the day they were picked?
A: Actually, the numbers were drawn on the same day that person bought those five identical lines. I'd guess that the person plays his or her numbers like that routinely. I see nothing at all fishy about it.
Good luck,
aye'