China Sports Lottery said on Thursday there had been no manipulation or faulty equipment in the January 17 draw, despite the unusual appearance of the number "55555" in one of the drawing sets.
On January 17, the latest lottery results of the China Sports Lottery revealed a rare "consecutive 5s" combination in both "Permutation 3" and "Permutation 5." The former's lottery number is the repeated digit "555," while the latter is "55555."
The first prize winners in "Permutation 5" also saw a significant increase, leading to the clearing of the prize pool to zero.
According to the official website of the China Sports Lottery, the national sales amount for "Permutation 5" was 23,056,924 yuan (US$3,211,452). The number of first prize-winning bets surged, with 5,966 bets, resulting in a single bet bonus of 84,034 yuan. The total distribution should be 501,346,844 yuan.
Given the rare winning number of "55555" and the high number of winning bets, many netizens questioned the results. Some expressed skepticism, stating that "normal people wouldn't buy such a strange number like 55555" and urged officials to check for abnormal super investors who might have purchased thousands of notes of 55555.
Customer service staff said on Thursday that the arrangement of the lottery numbers is random. The occurrence of "consecutive 5s" aligned with the rules of the game, and there was no evidence of human manipulation or equipment program failure. Similar cases of serial numbers had occurred before.
Notably, the prize pool for "Permutation 5" has been cleared, marking the second occurrence of such clearance after the January 7 draw for "Permutation 5."
