433 Win P236-Million Grand Lotto Jackpot

The much coveted P236-million Grand Lotto jackpot drawn last Saturday night, Sept. Oct. 1, will be divided among an unprecedented 433 winners who bet on the same number combination: 09-45-36-27-18-54 – a number sequence divisible by nine.

Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) general manager Melquiades Robles assured the public on Sunday, Oct. 2, that while the incident might be odd, nothing irregular caused it.

He said it was simply a quirky betting pattern of some Filipino lotto players that was rewarded handsomely.

“This is a game of chance. In a game of chance, nothing is definite, it is not controllable. And yes, things happen for the first time,” Robles said, admitting his own surprise that 433 bettors happened to win the jackpot by betting on one of the oddest winning number combinations ever.

“If you think it’s a bit weird (to win with) 9-18-27-36-45-54 – mind you, it did not come out in that order, OK? – you will be surprised,” he said, speaking partly in Filipino at a press conference called by the PCSO on Sunday afternoon.

Joining Robles at the press conference was Arnel Casas, PCSO assistant general manager for gaming and product development, who conducted a review of their betting system relative to Saturday’s draw. Upon checking, Casas said: “There were many winners because there were many who regularly bet on the combination.” He reported to Robles that apart from betting on numbers divisible by nine, more than a hundred bettors were putting money on very odd sequences like 1-2-3-4-5-6.

“There are people betting on 1-2-3-4-5-6. We thought it was really a freak, but there are such bettors – we checked. There’s 05-10-15-20-25-30. And we found out that there are those consistent in betting (on these number combinations),” Robles said.

In this case, where 433 people bet and won on the number sequence divisible by nine, Robles said: “Loyalty pays off.” The PCSO chief pointed out that the 433 jackpot winners had come from all around the country, from Luzon to as far as Zamboanga in Mindanao.

He said there were also 12 jackpot winners who bet on the winning combination using the Lucky Pick system of the PCSO Lotto system. “We have the locations where they placed the bets,” he added.

OCTA: 1 in 30 million chance

OCTA Research fellow Guido David’s reaction to the winning number combination, as posted on his Twitter account, was “Wow, a mathematical sequence!”

In an interview with dzBB radio, David said the probability that a bettor would get six numbers out of the 55 is about one out of 30 million.

But he was not so skeptical about hitting the jackpot if the number combination had a sequence, in this case, divisible by nine.

“There might have been that possibility. Because there is a pattern, more could have bet on this sequence of numbers... so we’re not saying it’s impossible,” he said in Filipino.

However, David stressed the very little probability of having 400 winners guessing the number combination in the same draw. “The probability is very small for 400 (bettors) to win at the same time,” he said.

Dr. Benjamin Co, another OCTA fellow, said having all the numbers chosen divisible by only one number – nine – is rare.

“But for that combination to be part of a geometric sequence, or numbers that could consecutively be divisible by one number as in the Oct. 1 winning combination? This does not even factor in the probability that all the numbers chosen are divisible by only one number – in this case by nine. That’s more rare,” Co said. Historical view Pacifico Jesus Villalino III, chief technology officer for Luzon of Philippine Gaming Management Corp. (PGMC) – one of two lottery systems provider of the PCSO, said that in their monitor-ing of lottery operations around the world, lotto number bet combinations working around the number nine are a favorite among players.

“It’s not only here in the Philippines but worldwide, the number nine is very popular as a lucky number,” Villalino, who joined Robles and Casas in the briefing, said.

“Only in Japan, the number is not a lucky number,” Villalino said.

Villalino also shared to PCSO reporters that they know of a lotto jackpot win in the United Kingdom in 2016 when there were also a crowd of jackpot winners – a Lotto 6/42 draw that had 4,082 winners.

He said that each winner ended up with a share of the jackpot of just 15 Euros out of the 61,230-euro jackpot. ‘BIR, the biggest winner’

But Robles said the biggest jackpot winner in last Saturday’s draw was the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

He explained that the BIR stood to collect 20 percent of a hefty 20 percent TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) tax on the 433 jackpot winners of the jackpot of exactly P236,091,188.40.

This is also the case for the 331 second prize winners who each won P100,000 for correctly guessing five numbers from the winning combination. Just on the second prize winners, the BIR stands to collect P33.1 million.

PCSO officials say that the 433 jackpot winners stand to get P436,000 each after taxes from the P545,245,23 share of each winner.

The TRAIN Law imposes a 20 percent tax on lotto winnings above P10,000.

There were also 2,491 third prize winners each of P1,500 for correctly guessing four of the six-digit winning combination.

Robles said that the huge crowd of jackpot winners appearing to be odd will not be a reason to change anything in the lotto draw system.

“We’re not seeing anything to be changed. We are, in fact, pleased that a lot of people actually won, especially since Christmas is coming,” he said. – With Pia Lee-Brago