The drawing of these numbers is under question, but you would expect a significant proportion of players to select sequences such as this, even if it's not in their best interests to do so.
Right, which IMO makes it less likely that someone is cheating. If you are going to cheat, why share?
you have to share. A single person couldn't pull this off. A bunch of lottery officials got together and picked these numbers. They had to pick an obvious sequence, because it would not be credible for 20 people to pick a non-obvious sequence.
That's just my theory, of course.
But why would they choose this incredibly specific set of numbers? If you can influence the draw, why influence it in the only way that riles up every human looking at the result? Why not just have it pick something that looks random?