A woman from northern Iowa wrote to us this month about one of the coolest coincidences we've seen involving lottery tickets.
Barbara Pauk of Garner said she was playing the "Bonus Crossword" game when she found her last name - P-A-U-K - spelled out in the play area on her ticket. So she wanted to know: What are the odds of that?
We were able to provide at least part of the answer. The game rules for Bonus Crossword show that about 7.8 million tickets were printed in the game. So the odds that somebody would buy a particular ticket in it are about 1 in 7.8 million.
But to truly determine the odds of someone named Pauk buying the ticket that Barbara purchased, we would have to know how many people with her last name there are in the world, and the likelihood that a percentage of them would be in Iowa and buy a ticket. So I don't think we can completely answer the question. But what a great story!
(The picture you see with this blog entry is the photocopied image that Barbara sent us of her ticket. And who knows? Maybe she'll find her name on a ticket again someday...)
Hi, Londa. In looking at the photocopy she sent in, we don't think that the ticket won a prize. It's still a great story, but you're right -- THAT would have been even better!
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | June 29, 2016 at 03:06 PM
Was the ticket a winner? Because that would have been awesome!
Posted by: Londa Wild | June 24, 2016 at 10:26 AM