Picture this: You are sitting at your computer and checking your lottery ticket numbers on the lottery website. First number matches. Cool. Second number matches. You are getting somewhere. Matches of the third number. Nice. Fourth number coincidences. Wow! Fifth Number Matches. My God, this could be good. The last number is missing. D’oh!
Has this scenario ever happened to you? Have you ever failed to win the lottery by just one number? It’s actually not as weird as you think. This happens to thousands of people every year.
Let me give you an example of the vast number of people who don’t win a jackpot for just one number. In Canada, the most popular game is Lotto 649. To win the jackpot, you must match 6 out of 6 numbers. In any given draw, it is normal for no one to win the jackpot. Sometimes one person wins the jackpot, sometimes two. But do you want to know how many people get 5 out of 6 numbers? Usually between 50 and 100 people. Lotto 549 is played twice a week in Canada and that means that in any given year between 5,000 and 10,000 people in the country do not win the lottery for a single number. that’s a lot of people.
It’s not just in Canada where so many people come close to hitting the jackpot without actually winning it. For example, in Florida, it is common for about 20 people to get 5 out of 6 numbers in the Florida Lotto in each draw. The Florida Lotto is drawn twice a week, so we’re seeing over 4,000 Floridians getting closer to winning the lottery every year. And that’s just one game in one state. Imagine what the number would be if we counted all close calls in all states.
That’s why I’m writing this today – If this close call a phenomenon has ever happened to you, you should know that you are not alone. It happens to a lot more people than you can imagine.
Some people are more than happy to match 5 out of 6 numbers in the lottery. After all, matching that many numbers usually results in a prize of a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. That is money in your pocket that you did not have before the victory. Other people, however, are not happy. After all, they were just a number away from winning a life-changing amount of money, perhaps millions of dollars. What do you think? Would you be happy to be one number away from a jackpot?