Florida Lottery sells out of 777 and 7777 combinations

Sunday, July 08, 2007 posted 08:34 PM EDT

To the 20,000 people who picked 777 for the Cash 3 game and the 10,000 people who picked 7777 for Play 4: Sorry about your luck.

The winning numbers tonight did not reflect our once-in-a-century date of July 7, 2007. Instead, the mundane numerals of 632 and 4695 made up the winners.

But still, the run up to the games was remarkable. For perhaps the first time in Florida history, the all-sevens combination sold out in both the Cash 3 and Play 4 lotteries.

"It never happens, this is very odd," said Jackie Barreiros, spokeswoman for the Florida Lottery. "I don't know of this has ever happened."

Barreiros explained that there are limits to how many tickets can be bought of a given number combination. In the Cash 3 game, it's 20,000 tickets, in Play 4, it's 10,000. People, perhaps superstitions because of the numerical significance (or insignificance) of today's date - the seventh day of the seventh month of the year 2007 - bought the ticket in droves all week, with the number increasing as it got closer to the weekend, Barreiros said.

This week has seen some strange coincidences already, she said. On Monday, the Lottery's 7,000th drawing, the Cash 3 numbers were 151 - which all add up to 7. Friday night's drawing also added up to 7: 016.

"I found that to be really interesting," she said.

According to Florida Lottery statistics, the combination of 777 has come up - get this - seven times. The last time it came up was Dec. 3 of last year. People who bought that ticket combination nearly sold the numbers out with 18,542 eventual winners.

And what about the Play 4?

It hasn't come up once.

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