STANFORD PHD WON THE TEXAS LOTTERY FOUR TIMES FOR $20.4M

Joan Ginther, who held a Stanford statistics doctorate, won four major Texas lottery prizes worth about $20.4 million, and people still wonder how.

ABC News reported on July 7, 2010 that Ginther had won a $10 million scratch-off prize the week before. It was her fourth major win.

The ticket came from the Extreme Payout game. The odds of winning that prize were 1 in 1.2 million, the network reported.

How the wins stacked up

Her streak started in 1993, when she took her cut of a Lotto Texas jackpot.

Next came the Holiday Millionaire scratch-off game, then the Millions and Millions game, before the Extreme Payout ticket finished the run.

All of the wins were in Texas. Most of the winning tickets were bought in Bishop, Texas, including some at Times Market.

The theories and what officials found

Talk that Ginther had cracked the lottery never went away, The Times of India reported.

Texas Lottery officials, however, found no evidence of fraud, irregularities or misconduct involving Ginther or the retailer, the paper said. No evidence has shown that she manipulated or reverse-engineered the lottery.

Ginther never publicly discussed how she won, VnExpress International reported. How often she bought tickets is unknown.

Yahoo Lifestyle reported that she never married and had no children.

What happened next

Ginther died aged 77 in 2024, UNILAD Tech reported.