Unusual all-20s lottery numbers in Korea spark rigging allegations. We calculated the odds
Winning set of 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, and 29 yields 36 winners, each with once-in-745 years chance
Unusual lottery results in South Korea have once again sparked heated online debate, as all six winning numbers in the 1162nd DongHang Lottery draw announced Saturday fell within the 20s.
The winning numbers are 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, and 29, plus a bonus number of 6. In this lottery, players pick 6 different numbers between 1 and 45.
According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance's Lottery Commission, 36 people matched these six numbers, splitting the first-prize money. They will each take home 823,931,021 won, which is approximately $567,000.
Among the winners, 23 chose their numbers manually, 11 relied on automatically generated numbers, and 2 used a semi-automatic selection system.
Despite the rare combination of all 20s numbers raising eyebrows and chatter online, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which oversees the state-run lottery operator DongHang Lottery, continues to dismiss any chances of fraud.
It says that every draw is broadcast nationwide in real-time and undergoes strict inspections of machines and balls before the official announcement. In an effort to reassure the public, DongHang Lottery invited 100 randomly selected observers — five times the usual 20 — to watch a live drawing at MBC studios in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, last November.
In South Korea's standard 6/45 lottery, 8,145,060 sets of six numbers could be drawn. Of those possibilities, only 210 sets have all six numbers in the 20s. That means, on average, you would expect to see an 'all 20s' draw about once in every 38,786 drawings — or about 0.0026 percent of the time.
To put that into perspective, if the lottery is drawn once per week, you might statistically expect an 'all-20s' result around once every 745 years.
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