A doubly-amazing lottery story

Karen Kavett, Francis Heaney and Sam Meeps discuss a question about lottery luck.

GUESTS:

HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.

EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.

[Sylocat]

From the wording of the question, I immediately figured out that the ticket wasn't for the Massachussetts state lottery, but the second art of the question was truly mind blowing.

[undine]

FYI, if you do play the lottery, pick random numbers above 31. Too many people pick birthdays, and by picking numbers that aren't able to be birthdays, you reduce the pool of people who you might split the prize with if you win. Won't increase your odds, but it will decrease the number of people you have to split with.

[piperevelyn]

"Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten." -Terry Pratchett

[romainsavioz]

The title made me think about the guy who won and then won again during the tv interview

[arcanics]

I have played the Lottery several times over the years, and spent around £20. When I won £50 last time, I decided to stay ahead and have never played again.

[Ultraw]

Legend has it, Maureen Wilcox celebrates Guy Fawkes night on the 11th of May

[caltheuntitled]

This sounds like a time traveler that didn’t read their notes correctly. Either that or an actual psychic that could use a little more practice.

[blindleader]

3:49 remember something like that years ago. It was in some Asian country, maybe Indonesia. I'm 98% certain that every lottery in the US uses a mechanical randomizer, like a tub full of plastic balls, rather than a computer program, so it can't happen here.

[rybock]

Generally good advice mentioned should you win the lottery. Also, as someone who may buy an occasional ticket... go with the random choice of numbers. If you play your birthday and your wife's birthday and your kid's to get the six numbers... if you don't play every drawing, and they hit one time you didn't buy a ticket, you know you missed out. Random numbers, you never know if you would have won and just missed a payday.

[Eliteerin]

I love it when I know the question as it's read out

[olivier]

State swap was my immediate thought, but double swap!

[AmGroot]

Upon hearing the question I instantly thought about the lottery ticket with the winning numbers being for a different state lottery, but I never even considered the possibility of getting the winning numbers swapped around like that

[bramnet]

I know it's the stereotypical comment, but I had the first part of the question the moment the question was laid out. I was like "that's too carefully worded about what state the ticket was for."

[pcfilho]

I had never heard that story before, but the correct answer immediately came to my mind, by the phrasing of the question.

[HawkerMatty]

An old neighbor I had told me once that she used to get the same numbers all the time whenever she bought a ticket, she didn't buy tickets all the time but she had like a consistent schedule. There was one time she missed buying a ticket and all of her numbers came up. She was a bit disappointed to say the least.

Without watching the rest of the episode - the wording seems suspiciously specific, so did she not buy the lottery in Massachussetts and she guessed the Massuchussetts numbers in a different state?

[MiklaneTrane]

Additional spoilery context:
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For those not familiar with US geography, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country (you can drive across it in less than 40 minutes). So it's not uncommon for people to live in Rhode Island and work in Massachusetts or Connecticut, or vise-versa. Her buying tickets for both states is probably something that many people do, or that she could do regularly.

[FelineBlender]

I loved the unappreciated Einstein on the Beach shout-out❤

For those not in the know its an aggressively repetive composition by Philip Glass which features lots of repeated speach fragments including the numbers 1-5.

Would it get some wind for the sailboat. And it could get for it is.
It could get the railroad for these workers. And it could be were it is.
It could Franky it could be Franky it could be very fresh and clean.
It could be a balloon.
All these are the days my friends and these are the days my friends.

[veggiet]

Ok most lateral questions are interesting, but this one is incredible!

[Saraseeksthompson]

This took them so long 😂 normally I don’t get irritated, but in this case, I’m like how could you not check which lottery it was for, after Tom read the question.