A woman from Virginia, Carrie Edwards, won $150,000 in a Powerball drawing after using ChatGPT to select her numbers. Edwards, who said she used the AI because she was unsure how to pick numbers for her first online ticket, acknowledged that the AI itself cautioned her that the lottery is a game of chance.
Details of the win
The draw: The win occurred in the Virginia Powerball drawing on September 8, 2025.
The numbers: Edwards' ticket, which was generated by ChatGPT, matched four of the five white balls plus the red Powerball.
The prize: Her win of $50,000 was tripled to $150,000 because she had purchased the "Power Play" option.
The donation: Edwards announced that she would donate all of her winnings to charity, including the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (in memory of her late husband), Shalom Farms (a food nonprofit), and the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
Why AI cannot predict the lottery
Despite this headline-making win, AI and ChatGPT are not capable of predicting lottery numbers.
A game of chance: The lottery is designed to be a random event, and past results do not influence future outcomes. ChatGPT effectively acted as a random number generator in Edwards' case, and she simply got lucky.
Pattern limitations: While AI is skilled at recognizing patterns in data, it cannot identify meaningful patterns in a truly random lottery draw. Any perceived trends in historical numbers are merely coincidences.
Ethical concerns: Promoting the use of AI for lottery prediction is considered harmful. It can create unrealistic expectations and encourage problem gambling by presenting a game of pure chance as a calculable strategy.