It Adds Up to Incredibly Lucky Player of Lotto

It’s no secret that the secret to winning the Lottery is beating the odds.

In the case of Cypress College student Miguel Chung, who won three times on the same Lotto ticket for a purse of more than $8 million, the odds were 1 in 80,000 trillion, mathematics professor Richard Zucker of Irvine Valley College figured out Tuesday.

That’s eighty thousand. Trillion.

Zucker and his colleagues at Irvine Valley came up with the number by multiplying the probability of a six-out-of-six numbers winner times the probability of a five-out-of-six numbers winner times the probability of another five-out-of-six numbers winner.

It’s a little complicated, Zucker concedes. So let’s just surmise, he said, that “in a case where you win three Lottery tickets, there are three possible explanations: One, you’re a psychic. Two, you’re incredibly lucky. Three, you’ve fixed the numbers in the Lottery computer.”

The 23-year-old Chung isn’t talking.

All that is known is that the Downey resident, who is studying business at Cypress, scored three times on one ticket. The first line netted him $1,984. The second one did too. The third got him $8 million.

“It seems like it’s much more amazing that he wins on all three lines than just one line alone,” said Zucker. “But frankly, it makes no difference.”

Zucker compares it to video poker in Las Vegas.

“If you’re dealt a full house and foolishly hold on to only four of the five cards, you’ll still be a winner no matter what new card you get,” he said.

Zucker speculated that Chung probably kept five numbers constant and varied only one number among the three lines. If that were the case, Zucker said, the odds of winning all three is somewhat better than the 80,000 trillion figure. That probability is 1 in 6,003,153, he said.