lotto winner gives prize to beggar

A woman who won the lottery in Nigeria gave the money to a street beggar barely an hour later.

Rosemary Obiakor, 46, of Lagos, won more than three million naira in the National Sports Lottery, reports the Daily Metro.

When asked what she planned to do with the money after she was presented with her cheque in a ceremony on local TV, Mrs Obiakor said she'd give it to a "lucky beggar".

"I have heard a lot of stories about how people win the lottery, and they get broke in the short run and come across a lot of misfortune. I am scared, and so I'll give it to a lucky beggar on the street," she told TV reporters.

She collected her cheque, cashed the money and gave the money to a female beggar who was sitting by the street side with her two-year old baby.

When Mrs Obiakor and a team of lottery executives handed the beggar a bag full of banknotes, she screamed with delight, and hugged them all.

She thanked her benefactor profusely and promised to start a food retail business immediately.

Before she went away with her money, the new 'millionaire' gave handfuls of money to other beggars on the street.

Source: ananova.com



80-year-old ex-gov’t employee wins P27.6 Megalotto jackpot

It was a retirement fund he didn’t have to work decades for.
By a stroke of sheer luck, an 80-year-old former government employee won last March 7, 2011 the 6/45 Megalotto jackpot of P27,587,136.60.

The male bettor from Cebu came to the PCSO office at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on Wednesday afternoon to claim his prize.

The winner, a regular bettor since 1996, correctly guessed the winning combination of 22-04-03-06-32-30.

He placed a P40 bet – P20 for a lucky pick combination and the other P20 using important dates.

Lucky lotto winners

I found this old story unbelievable but it really did happened.

A Ghost story? or a Ripleys, believe it or not story?

Believe it or not this lotto story is a world record with 1326 lotto bettors winning the 2nd Jackpot prize and it happened in a Halloween lotto draw.

Nov 4, 2005

More than P30 million in cash prizes was paid out by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) when a record-breaking 1,326 bettors won the second prize in the Halloween lotto draw.

But that was not the big story yet behind the Oct. 31 lotto 6/45 draw way back 2005

PCSO officials discovered that most of the winners who held lotto tickets containing five of the six drawn numbers had placed bets on six identical numbers: 3, 23, 37, 28, 42 and 18.

What was even more surprising was the fact that those who chose similar combination's simply lifted the lucky numbers from the sample number pattern that was printed as instruction on every lotto card.

"Had they thought of changing the number 18 to 19, the Philippines could have recorded the biggest number of winners who would have divided the lotto jackpot.

But the second prize winners had made the right decision because they would have romped away with only about P12,600 each if the jackpot of P16,257,499.20 was divided among the 1,326 bettors.

Fortunately, six lotto bettors changed the "18" to "19" and found themselves joining the hundreds of individuals who won the jackpot and became instant millionaires. With the winning number combination of 3, 23, 37, 28, 42 and 19, they each became P2,709,583.20 richer.

Estrella, who is one of the signatories of checks for bettors who were able to correctly guess five or six of the drawn numbers, revealed that the biggest number of five-digit winners was more than 400 ticket holders.

"This is a very rare but not as extraordinary as having a repeat of jackpot combinations. I do not recall any lottery that drew exactly the same winning number combinations since the lotto started in the country," he said.


Source:
Manila Bulletin
BEN R. ROSARIO

Lotto winner says ..... there's more to life than money

I found a very interesting old story about a lotto winner from Wales.
who won £1.3million (P61.8 million pesos) way back July 2006.
His name is Luke Pittard who understand that there's more to life than money.

It's not the natural habitat of a millionaire.
But if you visit a particular McDonald's store in Cardiff, you've every chance of being served by one.

Despite winning more than £1m (P61.8 million) on the lottery Luke Pittard decided to go back to work at McDonalds

He celebrated in the usual way, buying a new home and splashing out on a lavish wedding and holiday in the Canary Islands.

Then he realized that he really missed his job and workmates.

So he asked to go back and couldn't be happier, getting up at the crack of dawn to flip burgers for £5.85 an hour.

"They all think I'm a bit mad but I tell them there's more to life than money," he said.

"I loved working at McDonald's before I became a millionaire and I'm really enjoying being back there again."

Few customers at the restaurant in Pontprennau, Cardiff, realize that a millionaire is frying their fries or taking their money behind the counter.

Mr Pittard and his girlfriend Emma Cox, 29, were working there together when he hit the jackpot.

They hung up their uniforms and settled down to domestic-bliss in a £230,000 home with their three-year-old daughter Chloe.

But 18 months later, the novelty of early retirement wore off.

"Lots of my old McDonald's workmates came to our wedding and I had kept in touch with them all the time, so I just thought: 'Why not go back?'" said Mr Pittard.


Thanks to :
The Evening Standard London

Lotto Forecaster

If we talk about Forecasting, PAGASA always comes to my mind.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration is a Philippine national institution dedicated to provide flood and typhoon warnings, public weather forecasts and advisories, meteorological, astronomical, climatological, and other specialized information and services.

I found a unique story about forecasting not for any weather disturbance but about lotto forecast. This forecast is not a software program but a man who will manually analyze and give you the possible lotto numbers that will come out for the days lotto draw. In return you have to give them 10% of your winnings as a tip for the prize.



ACCRA, Ghana — William Galley hasn’t always been a lottery “forecaster.” He used to lug concrete blocks around construction sites but he calls that work tedious.

“I use my brain to forecast,” he said.

Forecasters like Galley scratch out a living by trying to predict winning lottery numbers. It’s not quite the scam it appears to be. They believe, as do many players, that if they work hard to spot trends in past draws, they’ll be rewarded.

And in a country where workers earn $50 (P2,250) per month on average, the hope of even a small payout is enough to sustain the trade.

“Anything from your heart,” said Galley, a talkative 40-year-old father of two who is among the few cigarette-smoking Ghanaians. “I don’t charge. It’s a game of chance, so you can’t sell it to somebody, unless the person wishes to dash.”

A “dash” is a tip. To “stake” is to place a bet. You’re always welcome to “dash” up front although it’s more common to return and tip 10 percent if you win.

They acknowledge lottery is a game of chance — expensive machines randomly select numbers — but nonetheless pore over lists of winning numbers. They display their predictions on blackboards.

“The forecaster knows which numbers will come,” said Roland Apiiga, an occasional player. “Sometimes I run out of money. If I have money, then I will come.”

In downtown Accra, they come to a dirt lot near Makola Market lined with two-dozen lotto kiosks, small wooden structures painted green, yellow and red. Here is where they make their picks.

“We are researching the figures that will be drawn,” Galley explained one morning as he looked over a paper containing lists of winning draws as far back as the early 1960s. “It’s not easy. If you don’t make more research, how can you win?”

In Ghana’s fixed-odds daily game, players select five numbers between 1 and 90. Forecasters are happy to hit just two of the five, good for a decent payoff — enough to keep players coming back, anyway. It costs about 70 cents per ticket. Two winning numbers on a minimum bet nets the ticket-holder about $140 (P3,500). The jackpot for a minimum bet is about $25,000.(P1,125,000)

One forecaster who asked to withhold his name — so his wife doesn’t discover what he’s doing — explained how he picked winning numbers 54 and 1 in a draw five months ago.

Using the newspaper, he pointed to a row of winning numbers, including 54 and 1, from 1968. Then again in a 1996 draw — he circled them in red marker. That’s it. No discernible pattern, but that was the recommendation.

Business is sporadic, they say. Galley had two winning numbers about two months ago, but didn’t land many tips. His biggest payday was seven years ago when a winning “client” tipped him $55. (P2,365)

Many lottery winners worldwide believe fate plays a role in their good fortune. Ghanaians, most of whom are devout Christians, are no exception. There are prayers among forecasters and players alike.

“We are all praying for survival,” Galley said. “You pray to God. God can listen to your prayer and say ‘So my son, take it,’ but not always. It’s a game of chance so sometimes you lose.”

Forecasters or lottery “advisers” aren’t limited to Ghana. Gossip tabloids including the National Enquirer have run ads from lottery strategists and plenty of websites sell “systems” to win lotteries.

Among the Frequently Asked Questions on the authority’s website: “Is Lotto a game of chance or plans?”

Instead of a clear-cut answer, it responds: “Players try to monitor the recurrence of some numbers. They do this by checking the results of past draws. This way, they can plan and stake numbers based on their convictions of the chances of those numbers being drawn. People who often do these probability plans and give numbers to players are often referred to as Lotto Forecasters.”

Galley has been forecasting for 20 years.

Thanks to: Ken Maguire
Globalpost