TRENTON, N.J. – In a morbid coincidence, the winning number in one of the New Jersey Lottery's games Monday was the same as the number of the American Airlines flight that crashed in Queens earlier in the day: 587.
So many lottery players chose the number for tickets for the evening Pick 3 drawing that the payout was unusually low, just $16 for a straight match. The box and pair payouts also were very low, at $2.50 and $1.50, respectively.
On a typical day, the straight bet payout for Pick 3 is $275, lottery officials said.
In another coincidence, the Pick 3 number chosen for the lottery's new midday drawing, which debuted Monday, was a variation on the flight number, 578.
Players who picked 587 for that drawing won a box payout of $13.50. The straight payout for the midday Pick 3 game was $81.50.
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