South Africa's PowerBall draws 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, and 20 tickets win

South Africa's PowerBall draw on Tuesday 1 December 2020 produced main numbers 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, with 10 as the PowerBall. It is South Africa's national lottery game, not the American Powerball.

Twenty tickets matched all six numbers, and each paid about 5.7 million rand, roughly £277,000 at the time. Another 79 tickets had the five main numbers without the PowerBall and won around 6,283 rand each. The operator, Ithuba, said it had never had 21 jackpot winners in one night, a count that included one winner on the separate PowerBall PLUS game.

Many South Africans went on social media to claim the result was rigged. The lottery's own social media account replied that the result might look unexpected, but many players choose runs of numbers like these.

The National Lotteries Commission, which regulates the game, opened a review. It said its preliminary findings showed no evidence of fraud, that a result like this was uncommon but not impossible, and that there is no human involvement in the draw procedure.

Sources

• The Guardian: Six in a row - winning numbers in South African lottery are 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (theguardian.com)
• UPI (archived): S. African lottery drawing comes up 5-6-7-8-9-10 (web.archive.org)
• 1News: South Africa lottery under scrutiny after winning numbers are 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (1news.co.nz)
• TimesLive: 20 people share R114m PowerBall jackpot (timeslive.co.za)