Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

I'm Charlotte

and today we're going on a journey to discover how statistics can be used

to investigate a mystery. a journalist with the Palm Beach Post in Florida became suspicious about his state lottery.

A lottery is a competition where if you buy a ticket

you have the chance of winning a big cash prize,

but the odds are normally stacked against you and it's very hard to win.

Lawrence got hold of a list of Florida's lottery winners.

That included people who were winning prizes of more than 600 US dollars on scratch cards as well as games where you have to match numbers to a lottery draw.

Just kind of on a whim, I'm kind of like, well, I'm just curious who's won the most often of any lottery game and I had the results were highly

suspicious to me. People weren't just winning a few times. I mean the same

individuals kept winning prizes again and again and again and again

again and again one person claimed 252 winning tickets. I mean what are the chances of people

winning the lottery on such a regular basis? I came from Las Vegas, that's where I grew up and I thought

personally being from Vegas if this was a casino they would be taking you into a

...