From the article (there is a near invisible more text button)

Calculating the actual odds of Ginther hitting four multimillion-dollar lottery jackpots is tricky. If Ginther's winning tickets were the only four she ever bought, the odds would be one in 18 septillion, according to Sandy Norman and Eduardo Duenez, math professors at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

And she was the only person ever to have bought 4 tickets (birthday paradoxes and all)...

I did see an analysis of this somewhere, I'll try and dig it up. Here it is. There is hackernews commentary here.

I find this, from the original msnbc article, depressing

After all, the only way to win is to keep playing. Ginther is smart enough to know that's how you beat the odds: she earned her doctorate from Stanford University in 1976, then spent a decade on faculty at several colleges in California.

Teaching math.