ALEXANDRIA, Va. (WAVY) – With just a few days before Easter, a Virginia man fittingly put all of his eggs in one basket – he played the same lottery numbers 20 times and it paid off.
Fekru Hirpo, of Alexandria, won $100,000 in a single Pick 4 drawing on April 5 using his lucky numbers, 2-5-2-7, according to the Virginia Lottery.
The top prize of $5,000 for the Pick 4 game is far less than the pot Hirpo won. But because all 20 of Hirpo’s tickets had the four same winning numbers, he was able to multiply the jackpot.
“Mr. Hirpo told Lottery officials he doesn’t usually play with so many tickets containing identical numbers, but something just told him to do it,” according to a news release.
The odds of his number combo paying off? One in 10,000, according to the lottery.
Hirpo bought his tickets from a Four Mile Run Shell in Arlington.
He says he has no immediate plans for what he will do with his winnings.
It’s not the first time such a strategy has paid off. A woman in Boca Raton, Florida hit it big after playing the same numbers on two Mega Millions tickets. She matched all five white balls on both tickets, but not the Mega Ball, netting her two $2 million prizes.
