People across Japan turned out in large numbers last week to line up and get their hands on tickets for BIG, a variation on the soccer lottery toto operated by the National Agency for the Advancement of Sports and Health, says Global Voices‘ Chris Salzberg.

The winners were announced last Sunday and each of the seven top-place winners got 563 million yen (approximately 4.6 million US dollars)–almost the largest payout in the history of the lottery.

One reason for increased interest in the lottery was due to the unusually large jackpot resulting from 1.5 billion yen carried over from 12 previous rounds, each of which had failed to deliver a winner.

Another reason is a new twist on the game–while the toto lotto normally allows ticket buyers to bet on their favorite J-league teams, in the case of BIG, these selections are made automatically at random, leveling the playing field for non-experts.

Salzberg’s report reviews comments on the lottery from Japanese blogs, including one about the folly of trying to ensure a win by buying lots of tickets (not only do you have basically no chance of winning one of these lotteries anyway, but “the law of averages” does not operate like most people think it does):

Some people might think about trying to buy all possible patterns for 300 yen each, but the number of different patterns for all possible game results is 4,782,969. If you buy all these tickets, it comes out to 1,434,890,700 yen. But then, since the computer chooses for you, even at this amount there is a chance that you won’t get a first-prize ticket.

Other bloggers were less than happy with the change in direction of the toto, including the notion that the original purpose of “promoting awareness about sports” has subsequently morphed into to a focus on gambling. Really? That’s what usually happens, unfortunately. But if you haven’t got a ticket you haven’t got a chance.