41,763 Hurleys Win $150 in Mega Millions Lottery

[Locutus of Bored]

Jackpot for 'Lost' lottery numbers
Over 40,000 Mega Millions players win $150 each after matching four numbers that the 'Lost' character Hurley played for his $114-million jackpot: 4, 8, 15 and 42.

By Melissa Maerz, Los Angeles Times
January 6, 2011

When Mega Millions conducted its lottery drawing on Tuesday night, millions of "Lost" fans wondered, Haven't we seen those numbers before?

On the television show, the character Hugo "Hurley" Reyes played the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 and ended up winning the $114-million jackpot. In real life, the lotto's selections for its $355-million prize — 4, 8, 15, 25, 47 and the crucial "Mega ball," 42 — included four of Hurley's numbers. According to the Mega Millions website, which reported receiving "unprecedented traffic" after the drawing, 41,763 people matched those four numbers, earning $150 apiece.

Of course, there's no way to tell just how many of those people were playing all of Hurley's numbers. But "Lost" executive producer Damon Lindelof celebrated by tweeting his own figures. "9,078 people played Hurley's numbers in the MegaMillions tonight, each winning $150," he wrote, "#THATSSORAVEN."

Jorge Garcia, the actor who played Hurley on the show, wasn't quite feeling that same warm-fuzzy vibe. "When will you people learn?" he wrote on his blog. "The numbers are bad!" At least they were for Hurley: "Lost" followers will remember that, shortly after claiming his bounty from the fictional "Mega Lotto Jackpot," Hurley discovered that his luck was cursed. His house soon burned down, and he was mistaken for a drug dealer by the police.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...0,885404.story

Awesome, although it's not a good idea to play a popular series of numbers like that if you intend to win big.

These people should keep an eye on the sky for stray meteorites.

[Dream]

There's a topic about this

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=134703

[Locutus of Bored]

There's no rule that says you can only have one thread on a subject for the entire board. There are people in Miscellaneous who might not post in GTV&M. I rarely post there. Plus, since this is real world news, it also applies here and not exclusively to GTV&M.

[Kestra]

I think it's cute, even if they didn't win all that much. Alas. I don't really have a set of numbers that I'm attached to.

I can picture Hurley yelling at all of them for playing the numbers though.

[TorontoTrekker]

Kestmas Tree wrote:

---

I think it's cute, even if they didn't win all that much. Alas. I don't really have a set of numbers that I'm attached to.

I can picture Hurley yelling at all of them for playing the numbers though.

Apparently he did - or, rather, Jorge Garcia did:

Jorge Garcia, the actor who played Hurley on the show, wasn't quite feeling that same warm-fuzzy vibe. "When will you people learn?" he wrote on his blog. "The numbers are bad!"

(From the L.A. Times story.)

[RJDiogenes]

That's hilarious.

LA should brace itself for a massive meteor shower.

[DeafPoet]

I rarely play the lottery unless the jackpot is obscenely large. On a few occasions I was tempted to play The Numbers. And then I envisioned this scenario and reconsidered.

Not that it matters. Even if this weren't a "true" drawing of the numbers, the odds against it happening in my lifetime were still ridiculous.

[wamdue]

yeah that was dumb, why play numbers that loads of others are playing, even if you win, you win small, not big.

[Gil T.Azell]

wamdue wrote:

---

yeah that was dumb, why play numbers that loads of others are playing, even if you win, you win small, not big.

But even if you play your own numbers you never know how many others play that set.
A friend of mine won once by having 5 of 6 + the bonus,, but because so many had the same numbers he played it was only $47,000+ normally its somewhere between $130,000 to $160,000.

[Lindley]

wamdue wrote:

---

yeah that was dumb, why play numbers that loads of others are playing, even if you win, you win small, not big.

But the odds of winning small are a lot better than the odds of winning big. I'll take $150 if I can get it!

[B.J.]

Heh. We recently had some Chinese takeout, and I laughed when I turned over my daughter's fortune and noticed the lottery numbers on the back: 4, 15, 16, 23, 31, 42.

[wamdue]

Johnny St. Nick wrote:

---

But even if you play your own numbers you never know how many others play that set.
A friend of mine won once by having 5 of 6 + the bonus,, but because so many had the same numbers he played it was only $47,000+ normally its somewhere between $130,000 to $160,000.

this is true of course, but at least your not playing numbers you know thousdands if not millions of others are playing. You know people are playing the Lost numbers, I think it came very close to it in the UK lottery.

I also agree the odds are very low, which is why I only play a handful of times a year.

[Guartho]

Lindley wrote:

---

But the odds of winning small are a lot better than the odds of winning big. I'll take $150 if I can get it!

If playing lotto is anything more than a really rare thing for you, you could just not by lotto tickets and you'd probably save a lot more than $150.

[Lindley]

It is rare actually. Just a bit of fun.

[Starbreaker]

I don't have a problem with playing Megamillions twice a week. $104 dollars or so a year and you might win millions.... pretty good trade off.