ALBANY, N.Y. Sept. 12 — On the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a date often repeated as 9-11, the numbers that popped up for the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.
"The numbers were picked in the standard random fashion using all the same protocols," said Lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."
Lottery officials expected to know late Thursday morning how many people picked those numbers and how much they won, Hapeman said.
She said the number of winners must be high because the 9-1-1 combination reached the lottery's set limit for combinations and sold out. On any given day, seven to 10 sets of numbers are "closed out," she said.
Geoff Cook, a clerk at an Albany-area convenience store, said he sold 20 to 25 tickets with those numbers.
But another Albany-area clerk, Farzad Khosravi, said people seemed reluctant about betting, and possibly winning, on tragedy.
"I think some people were disgusted with the idea of playing that number because it represents a black day in the history of America," he said.
For the evening drawing, the state lottery uses numbered balls circulating in a machine. When three levers are pressed, three balls pop up into tubes randomly. Hapeman said Wednesday was the first time in more than a year that the 9-1-1 combination came up.
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