(Boise, ID) It’s something that generally only happens in movies. Imagine 110 people having Chinese food. They get a fortune cookie at the end of their meal that contains a fortune and some lucky numbers. They play the numbers on their next Powerball ticket, and defying all odds the numbers show up…that is all the numbers except the red Powerball number. 

Last night, the first five of the six numbers above showed up in the Powerball drawing, and one lucky Idahoan is now a huge fan of Chinese food. Six months ago Jackie Mangum of Payette had dinner at the Number One China Buffet in Ontario. She says she started playing the numbers on her fortune cookie from that night on. Last night it paid off. Today, she walked into the Idaho Lottery office and claimed $100,000. But it doesn’t end there.

Across the rest of the United States, 109 other people picked the same five numbers that Mangum picked…88 of them also will get $100,000. Twenty-one purchased the Power Play for an extra buck. They’ll get $500,000. As you might imagine, the 110 winners broke the record for the most ever Match 5 winners in the history of the Powerball game. Statistically, the Powerball game expected to have four winners at the Match 5 level. 

The anomaly sent everyone at the Multi-state Lottery Association scrambling to find out why so many winners. They discovered that so far almost all had the number 40 as the Powerball number. The winning Powerball number was 42.

As the winners continue to come forward…so far several in at least a half-dozen states…were just like Mangum. They got their numbers from a fortune cookie. Powerball, nationwide, paid out nearly $20-million in cash prizes on the fortune cookie numbers. Ironically, one person, a Tennessee player, had all five numbers and the Powerball number to win $25-and-a-half-million. That ticket was a computer-generated ticket. 

“People have a lot of different ways of selecting their numbers,” said Idaho Lottery Director Roger Simmons. “When this many winners showed up on one night, we knew there had to be some common thread. This should make everyone think twice before they throw away that fortune cookie. And it will probably have a serious impact on what type of restaurant people select for a while.” 

Powerball is now played in 27 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, contact Roger Simmons at 869-0200.