Actually, I think the odds are probably even better than that, if you think about it.

If New York is anything like California, the state-run lotteries have multiple sub-games involving numeric draws. For instance, I think the three-digit draw cited in the news is probably one of the sub-games rather than the main "big jackpot" lottery (too few digits for a big lottery). So I would guess that the odds are even better that the digits 9, 1, and 1 would come up in a single draw of any one New York State lottery game.

See, you could say that the odds are X that those digits came up in that particular game. Okay, sure, but if the digits had come up in another game, then the OTHER game would have gotten all the attention (post-hoc reasoning with regards to odds). So you can't really exclude the other New York games from your odds calculations.

And if you count all the other places in the state where numeric-draw gambling is taking place, I would imagine that those digits appeared many times over during the course of the day, and in fact, any day of the year.

Maybe I'll go ask the guy at www.thewizardofodds.com if he's got any opinion on it (maybe he's already got one posted)...