Chinese businessman wins USD 96 million lottery, country’s biggest so far

Beijing, Feb 21 (PTI) A 28-year-old man in China has won a 680 million yuan (USD 96 million) lottery jackpot, the biggest in the country so far.

The winner is from Guizhou province in southwestern China, according to the website of the government-backed organiser China Welfare Lottery, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

He bought 133 tickets at two yuan (USD 28 cents) each, betting on the same group of seven numbers every time, and each of his tickets won a prize of 5.16 million yuan (USD 725,000), the local television station reported.

The lottery pool entitled the man, whose identity has not been released to the public, which is routine for prize winners, to receive the 680 million yuan (USD 96 million) bonanza.

The unidentified jackpot winner said he was so excited when he found out he had won that he could not sleep.

An official from the provincial welfare lottery centre said the winner came to pick up the prize money on February 7.

According to the Individual Income Tax Law rules, he will need to pay one-fifth of his lottery income in tax, the report said.

“At first I didn’t believe it, so I verified it several times. I was too thrilled to sleep,” he said.

The man, who has a small business in Anshun city, drove to Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, to collect his prize-winning cheque early the next morning.

“I’ve been researching the trend of numbers appearing in previous winning tickets. I chose some of those and added one of my own lucky numbers to bet on,” he said.

“I have bet on this set of figures for a long time. I will share this good news with my family during the Spring Festival holiday,” he added.

His lottery win of 680 million yuan exceeded China’s previous record of 570 million yuan (USD 81 million), won by a man living in Beijing in 2012.

In December last year, a man in eastern Jiangxi province spent 100,000 yuan buying lottery tickets and scooping a 200 million yuan prize, triggering public suspicion and requests for an investigation.

A man, who lives in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, was criticised after he won 218 million yuan (USD 40 million) in 2022, but decided not to tell his wife or children because he thought they would “swell in their heart” and stop working hard, the Post report said. PTI