After 433 people hit the “Grand Lotto” lottery last Saturday, Philippine police launched an investigation into the incident. The prize for the lottery was Philippine pesos 236 million (approximately R$ 20.8 million).
According to the BBC, the incident aroused suspicion because it followed a pattern: all the numbers drawn were multiples of nine – 9-45-36-27-18-54.
Mathematically it may be a coincidence, but an expert consulted by the British broker pointed out that any number pattern that creates a winning series will be “rare for any single lottery.”
The Grand Lotto works similarly to the Brazilian Mega-Sena: to win the maximum prize, the player must match six numbers – in the Philippine case, they range from 1 to 55.
According to The New York Times, Filipinos accused the state company of being responsible for a scam lottery that executives rejected.
“These lottery games are authorized by the Republic of the Philippines. Therefore, we need to preserve and protect the integrity of these games of chance,” said Koko Pimentel, Minority Leader of the Philippine Senate.
Melquiades Robles, director of the Philippine Charity Lottery Office in charge of the lottery, defended the winners: “What’s happened so far is just an ordinary event. I don’t see anything wrong here.”
While the situation was being investigated by local authorities, even with suspicion, the winners of the lottery began to present themselves to withdraw the prize.
Each winner received a slice of 545,000 Philippine pesos, just over R$46,000.
source: Noticias
