Powerball draw “randomised” luck – NCL

THE National Lotteries Commission (NLC) said the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Powerball draw on Tuesday – which saw 20 people from eight provinces come away with over R5 million in winnings each – was not a scam but a case of randomised luck.

This after some South Africans were up in arms and crying foul play on social media.

The occurrence of consecutive numbers, while uncommon, is not impossible, the NLC said, with the odds of any set of numbers selected for PowerBall being one in 42 million.

“The NLC would like to assure all South Africans that all National Lottery games and methods used to conduct draws undergo a rigorous process of review prior to approval by the NLC. This is to ensure that the National Lottery is conducted with integrity and all players are afforded an equal chance of winning prizes,” the NLC said.

Ithuba, the official operator of the National Lottery in South Africa, said the draw had been historical.

“History and experience have taught us that it is common for multiple players to select the same winning numbers. Just a week ago, we celebrated two players who won the R19 Million PowerBall PLUS jackpot from the November 24 draw,” Ithuba’s Busisiwe Msizi said.

“What we were also not imagining was that 20 people could win the same jackpot; this came as a pleasant surprise to us and in fact, our wildest dream came true. It has always been Ithuba’s goal to offer life-changing jackpots to as many people as possible, especially now, following the tough year that we’ve had.”

Ithuba uses a random number generator (RNG) system, Trusted Draw 360 RNG. This is a computational device designed to generate a sequence of numbers that lack any pattern.