On March 30, 2005, lottery officials at Powerball headquarters started sweating. Not because someone had won the jackpot—but because 110 people had just won second place. At the same time. With nearly identical numbers.

Normally, lottery drawings produce four or five second-place winners. Sometimes a few more if the jackpot gets really big. But 110? That screamed fraud. The investigation began immediately.

The Numbers Don't Lie (Except When They Do)

The winning combination was 22, 28, 32, 33, and 39, with Powerball number 42. Among the 110 winners, 89 received $100,000 each, while 21 who'd purchased the Power Play option took home $500,000. As investigators interviewed the winners, they kept hearing the same bizarre explanation: "I got my numbers from a fortune cookie."

Tennessee and Idaho lottery officials tracked down the source, visiting Chinese restaurants and following the trail of evidence. It led them to Wonton Food Inc. in Long Island, New York—the world's largest fortune cookie manufacturer.

So Close, Yet So Far

Here's the cruel twist: the fortune cookie numbers were 22, 28, 32, 33, 39, and 40. The actual Powerball was 42. Everyone who played those exact numbers was one digit away from splitting a $25.5 million jackpot.

Instead of becoming multi-millionaires, they walked away with second-place prizes. Still not a bad return on a $1 ticket and a free cookie, but imagine the collective groan when they realized how close they'd come.

The Aftermath

After a thorough investigation, lottery officials concluded there was no conspiracy, no fraud, no elaborate scheme. Just thousands of people across the country who:

Ate at Chinese restaurants
Opened their fortune cookies
Decided "why not?" and played the lucky numbers
Actually won something

Wonton Food Inc. manufactures over 4 million fortune cookies daily, each batch containing various combinations of "lucky numbers." The odds of any specific combination hitting were astronomical—but when you're printing millions of identical number sets and distributing them nationwide, eventually someone's cookie is going to nail it.

The 2005 incident remains one of the most unusual lottery anomalies in history. It didn't break any records for jackpot size, but it absolutely shattered the record for "most people who can legitimately say they won the lottery because of Chinese takeout."

Wonton Food still prints lucky numbers on their fortune cookie slips. And yes, people still play them. Because hope springs eternal, and cookies are delicious.

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