Fortune Cookie Lottery Numbers Actually Work. Who Knew?

I haven't played the lottery in years, only because I don't know, one in a 292 million chance to win the Powerball doesn't sound like a good investment to me. But what do I know, I was an English major. But now I see that, according to a study by the media company OpenFortune, nearly 150 lottery winners between 2004 and 2021 made the decision to play after opening a fortune cookie. OpenFortune, it must be noted, distributes branded fortune cookies to more than 19,000 restaurants nationwide.

We've covered lotto-winning fortune cookies not once, not twice, but three times before. There must be something to this magic, huh? Well, at least an improved chance of winning. But the total earnings accumulated between everyone was out of control; $406,657,618 sounds like a good time to me. Winners came from a blend of Powerball, Mega Millions, Daily Draw and scratch-off tickets from 40 states. Of those winners, 93% had winning tickets of $100,000 or more. Yowza. And the numbers that generated the most winners were 4, 14, 15, 22, 26 and 28. Please numbers, whisper your magic to me.

South Carolina produced the largest number of winners: 15 lucky people. Pennsylvania and Tennessee trailed behind, with 13 and 12 players, respectively. But Illinois seems to have a particular fondness for fortune cookies, as 90% of those polled said they used their fortune cookie to play the lotto, and 80% said they were more likely to play the lotto after breakin' into a fortune cookie.

"It's obvious – fortune cookies instill feelings of luck and prosperity. But we were shocked by the sheer number of people who played, and actually won, using the motivation from their fortune. That small slip of paper is powerful and elicits emotions that can ultimately lead people to make life-changing decisions," said Matt Williams, OpenFortune's Chief Cookie Officer.

So fess up, readers, have any of you played the lotto based off of fortune cookie numbers? Because I haven't. It's nice to know that the odds aren't zero, though, I guess.