South African lottery probe finds no fraud after selection of 6 consecutively numbered balls

The lottery gods win this round. After a South Africans PowerBall drawing produced the quirky combination of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 with PowerBall 10 on Tuesday, citizens wondered aloud if fraud had been committed. “Daylight robbery, PowerBall,” wrote Twitter user macE1. “The giveaway is the 20 winners. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Who would ever play that. Rigged.” But 20 people did select those numbers, splitting a jackpot of approximately $7.5 million. The drawing also prompted an investigation by the National Lotteries commission, which stated on Thursday that no shady dealing was involved. “This occurrence, while uncommon, is not impossible,” said the agency. In the national lottery, players select five numbers ranging from one to 50, and a single PowerBall number between one and 20. The odds of nailing all five numbers and the PowerBall are one in 42,375,200. In addition to Tuesday’s lucky winners, another 79 players correctly guessed the first five numbers, but erred on their PowerBall choice. Wanted fugitive shot dead, at least two U.S. Marshals wounded in Bronx shooting Another reason to pay the fare: Turnstile jumper busted with $1,600 in cash also had enough illegal pills to stock a pharmacy, cops say Viggo Mortensen defends playing gay character in new film: Maybe I’m not ‘completely straight’ The NLC issued a statement on Wednesday assuring players that the lottery wasn’t a scam, noting that it is “conducted with integrity and all players are afforded an equal chance of winning prizes.” The game’s random number generator system also is periodically tested to ensure integrity, and lottery officials and independent observers watch the drawings, the agency added. Arecibo radio telescope featured in ‘Contact’ and ‘GoldenEye’ collapses » Mathematician Grant Sanderson has calculated the odds of PowerBall spitting out a consecutive sequence as one in 23,541. “We should expect one-in-23,000-chance events to happen all the time,” Sanderson told ABC News. “If every second there’s a one-in-23,000 chance of something ‘interesting’ happening somewhere in the world, we’d expect there to be something ‘interesting’ about three to four times a day.” Recommended on Daily News

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