South African lottery: Six consecutive winning numbers in a row spark fraud accusations

Europe World

South African lottery: Six consecutive winning numbers in a row spark fraud accusations

Six consecutive winning numbers drawn in a row by South Africa’s national lottery has sparked accusations of fraud, leading the commission to conduct an investigation.

The winning numbers announced earlier this week by South Africa’s National Lotteries Commission (NLC) were: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the Powerball number was 10.

Twenty people who had all the numbers on their ticket won 5.7 million rand (NZ$527,358) each. Another 79 collected 6283 rand (NZ$581) for matching the five numbers without the Powerball.

“Congratulations to tonight’s 20 winners of Powerball draw,” the lottery tweeted. “These numbers may be unexpected, but we see many players opt to play these sequences.”

However, players were not as enthused at South Africa’s national lottery, with many on social media making accusations of fraud.

However, others could see the possibility of how the particular combination of numbers could have been drawn as the winning ones.

South Africa's NLC spokesman Ndivhuho Mafela told AFP the commission will conduct a review “and if there is anything that went wrong we will declare that”.

In South African lottery they use combination. Where other doesn't matter. Where's in the US its permutation where order of numbers matter. Each number has a equal chance of been selected so the process is random
— Nkanyiso Bonga Ntombela (@Nkanyiso14) December 1, 2020

“So we are in the process of doing that currently.”

This is not the first time fraud claims have been made against the commission.

In November, The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) said investigations into alleged corruption and maladministration involving the South Africa’s NLC were underway after claims of corruption in the distribution of lottery funds were reported.

President Cyril Ramaphosa had signed a proclamation authorising the SIU to go ahead with the probe, local media reported.

The primary mandate of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act is to recover and prevent financial losses to the state caused by acts of corruption, fraud and maladministration.