From Riches to Rags! October 25th drawing is a bust...
The lottery picking spreadsheet just can't make any kind of accurate prediction when we get a wierd draw like this one. The winning numbers were: 16-40-42-43-48 Powerball 1. First, the draw doesn't very often produce three numbers within the same 10 count, but FOUR? That's really strange. Since they were in the 40s too, that busted over our sum range of 99 to 176 - 75% of the sums of all the last draws in 2006 fit that pattern. This one came in at a high sum of 189. We also completely missed the Powerball too. The spreadsheet did however, once again spot on pick that there would be 4 even and 1 odd number as the best chance for the first five.

Better news is that I cashed in our winning tickets in from our last stellar performance in the draw a week ago. I walked out of QT rather nervously with $195 in my pocket - using the difference to pay for today's draw - and then taking the banked remainder to clip together $321 which we will distribute among the members.

Nobody else won jackpot either this evening across the nation with the jackpot payout now at over $38 million. If we don't have a winner this weekend - will certainly be near or above $45 million when we play again next Wednesday. Watch this space for updates.