Man buys 30 tickets in Virginia Lottery, using same four numbers. He won 30 times

A Virginia man and his cousin decided to play the same four numbers in the Virginia Lottery and both came up winners.

However, Benjamin Shuler took a bolder approach to the game than his cousin.

“Shuler didn’t have just one winning ticket in the March 28 night drawing. (He) had 30 tickets,” the Virginia Lottery reported in an April 21 news release.

That means he won 30 times in Pick 4, a game that has 1 in 10,000 odds of winning just once.

“With 29 of those tickets, he won the game’s top prize of $5,000. With one ticket, he wagered 50 cents, rather than $1, so he won $2,500,” the lottery said.

The 30 tickets added up to $147,500 in winnings.

Why Schuler spent only 50 cents on that last ticket was not revealed. All but three of his 30 tickets were purchased at the High Up Food Mart in Sterling, about 5 miles from his home in Herndon, officials said.

The remaining tickets came from a 7-Eleven, also in Sterling.

Schuler’s lucky numbers were 0-8-1-6, and he didn’t reveal how he and his cousin came up with the winning combination.

Players choose any four-digit combination “from 0000 through 9999,” or they can let a computer pick for them, according to the lottery website.

This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 10:48 AM with the headline "Man buys 30 tickets in Virginia Lottery, using same four numbers. He won 30 times."