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What happens when you let artificial intelligence pick your lottery numbers?
For Tammy Carvey, it meant a $100,000 payday.
The 45-year-old Wyandotte, Michigan, woman turned to ChatGPT when the Powerball jackpot climbed over $1 billion in early September. She asked the AI chatbot to generate a set of numbers. Then she played them. Carvey said:
I only play Powerball when the jackpot gets up there, and the jackpot was over $1 billion, so I bought a ticket. I asked ChatGPT for a set of Powerball numbers, and those are the numbers I played on my ticket.
Those numbers, 11-23-44-61-62 PB: 17, matched four white balls plus the Powerball in the September 6 drawing. The base prize was $50,000, but Carvey had added the Power Play option to her ticket. That multiplied her winnings to $100,000.
She thought she won $50,000
Carvey didn't immediately realize how much she'd won. She stated:
When I checked the winning numbers, I saw I matched four white balls and the Powerball and knew I had to have won something. Google told me it was a $50,000 prize, so that's what I thought I'd won.
It wasn't until she logged into her Michigan Lottery account that the real amount appeared. She'd forgotten about the Power Play.
"My husband and I were in total disbelief," Carvey recalled.
She recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim her prize. She plans to pay off her home and save the remainder.
Can AI actually predict lottery numbers?
Carvey's win raises an obvious question: Did ChatGPT give her special numbers?
The short answer is no.
In a legitimate, controlled, government-run lottery, there's no way to accurately predict draw numbers. Not even by using AI. Past draws have no bearing on future draws, which means AI can't outsmart the system.
ChatGPT chose Carvey's numbers the same way any random number generator would. It analyzed historical patterns and spit out a combination. The win was pure luck.
Should you use AI to pick your numbers?
If it's fun for you, sure. Just don't expect it to improve your odds.
AI can analyze past lottery results and identify patterns faster than any human. It can flag "hot numbers" that appear frequently or numbers that are statistically overdue. But this historical analysis doesn't give it any real predictive power.
Your guess is as good as the AI's.
Companies selling lottery AI software often use impressive language like "advanced algorithms" and "professional-grade analytical capability." Some charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars. But buyer beware—these tools can't deliver what they promise.
The Federal Trade Commission has clamped down on companies making false promises about AI-powered income schemes.
What Carvey's win really proves
Tammy Carvey's $100,000 prize proves one thing: AI can pick numbers just as randomly as you can.
ChatGPT didn't use any special algorithm to help her win. It simply generated a set of numbers. She played them. She got lucky.
The AI didn't do anything magical. It just made a guess, the same guess a quick pick machine would make, or the same guess you'd make by closing your eyes and pointing at numbers on a playslip.
The difference is that Carvey's numbers hit. And now she's paying off her house.
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