Nearly 5,000 North Carolina lottery players turned a long-shot combination into a quick payday this week after a Pick 3 drawing came up all zeros.
The North Carolina Education Lottery said 4,917 tickets matched Monday night's numbers — 0-0-0 — splitting roughly $1.7 million in prizes, according to UPI. Players who spent $1 on their ticket collected $500 apiece, while those who paid 50 cents walked away with $250.
Pick 3 asks players to choose three digits from 0 to 9 in exact order. Matching all three the way they were drawn pays the top prize no matter which numbers come up — but "triples," any sequence of three identical digits from 0-0-0 to 9-9-9, are disproportionately popular among players, which is why so many tickets cash in whenever one lands.
"Trips are combinations of three of the same numbers. They are some of the most popular sets of numbers among players."
North Carolina Education Lottery
It isn't the first time triple zeros have produced a crowded winners' circle in North Carolina. Similar 0-0-0 draws have periodically set off smaller waves of five-figure-ticket wins in the state's Pick 3 game, underscoring how many players bet on the same handful of "lucky" combinations rather than spreading picks across the full range of possibilities.
With three digits and multiple draws a day, the odds of hitting any specific straight combination in North Carolina's Pick 3 sit at 1 in 1,000 — meaning any given triple is just as mathematically unlikely, and just as possible, as any other three-digit sequence. The lottery didn't say how the day's overall sales compared with a typical Monday, but the surge of winning tickets was enough to make the drawing one of the state's more talked-about lottery moments of the month.