There was an interesting case in 2005 when 110 people claimed the second prize in Powerball, compared to an expected 4 winners. The lottery officials suspected

There was an interesting case in 2005 when 110 people claimed the second prize in Powerball, compared to an expected 4 winners. The lottery officials suspected fraud of some sort since there were so many winners. But it turned out that a whole pile of fortune cookies had been printed with the same numbers and a lot of people use the lucky fortune cookie numbers. Thus 110 people ended up using the same winning numbers. The point is that the numbers people select can be extremely different from a random distribution. Sources: http://www.snopes.com/luck/cookie.asp http://www.snopes.com/luck/cookie.asp http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/03/31/fortune-cookie-leads-to-record-number-powerball-winners/ http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/03/31/fortune-cookie-leads... According to a mathematician, even numbers over 31 are less common, so you should pick those to avoid splitting the jackpot: http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149635815/the-sobering-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-jackpot http://www.npr.org/2012/03/29/149635815/the-sobering-odds-of...