On Wednesday evening, a lucky player hit the jackpot in Loterie Romande's "Le Joker" game. 2.6 million francs await the winner with the corresponding ticket. It is quite possible that this is in the possession of a select group of organized players.
In the six-number draw, this means around one million variants. Although this tactic cost the group two million francs - each ticket costs two francs - it probably secured them a large share of the additional winnings in addition to the jackpot.
"They looked like mathematicians"
The unusual bets alerted Loterie Romande, which temporarily suspended the game on Tuesday and launched an investigation.
A kiosk vendor told "24 heures" that the players came in with envelopes full of banknotes and claimed they had the means to play all the combinations. "They were young people who were very confident and looked like mathematicians," the man is quoted as saying.
Numbers speak for themselves
It is not known whether the only winning jackpot ticket is actually in the group's possession. Statistically speaking, however, it is very likely.
In any case, the numbers speak for themselves: in this draw, one winning ticket for six numbers, eleven tickets with five, 83 with four, 899 with three and 8692 with two more correct numbers indicate a very high level of activity. For comparison: in the penultimate draw on January 11, only one ticket had five correct numbers, 24 had four, 158 had three and 1649 had two.