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It was a 1-in-29 million shot and all it took to win it all was a P20 bet.
One lucky bettor won the P163.92-million jackpot prize in Wednesday night’s 6/55 Grand Lotto draw—five months after the jackpot was last won.
The lone bettor from Luzon hit the winning combination of 36-26-10-49-32-37, according to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
The lone winner placed a single bet of P20 on the numbers at a lotto outlet in Sorsogon City in Bicol, the PCSO said.
The winner has yet to claim the prize.
Twelve other bettors will each receive a consolation prize of P150,000 for hitting five of the six-digit combination. Another 1,226 bettors won P2,000 each for getting four numbers correct, while 32,662 others can claim P150 each for guessing three numbers right, PCSO said.
This is the second time that the Grand Lotto jackpot was hit this year.
Millions unclaimed
In February, two bettors won the P300.15 million jackpot after both correctly guessed the winning combination of 10-20-11-16-28-14.
Strangely, neither of the two winners has collected their prizes, according to PCSO records.
The winning combination in that February draw was picked in one ticket bought in Hinunangan, Southern Leyte, and in another ticket bought in Taytay, Rizal.
‘Balikbayan’ winner
The highest jackpot reached in the Grand Lotto 6/55 draw—and in Philippine lottery history as well—was P741 million. It was won on Nov. 29, 2010, by a New York-based “balikbayan” (Filipino returnee), who bought the winning ticket while on vacation in Olongapo City.
That winner, a 60-year-old building estimator from New York, claimed his winnings about a month after the draw. The PCSO said the man intended to retire in the Philippines and leave his winnings here.
In June last year, a barangay (village) tanod from Las Piñas City who was too poor to send his children to school won the Grand Lotto jackpot of P356 million.
Only a handful of people have won the 6/55 lottery since its first draw on April 2010. In the game, bettors can stake a minimum of P20 on any six of 55 numbers from 1 to 55, in no particular order.
28.9 million combinations
Experts in the game of chance say winning the Grand Lotto is difficult because of the sheer number of combinations that bettors can choose from.
Out of the total possible 28.9 million combinations in a 6/55 game, bettors normally put money on only about 25 percent of those combinations, according to authorities familiar with how the lottery works.
That means that 75 percent of the combinations do not have even a single bet on them.
It would take a person about P580 million to bet on all the possible combinations.
The sheer size of the odds is the main reason only a fraction of possible combinations is picked by bettors, leading to higher jackpots in the successive draws, PCSO officials said.
The next Grand Lotto draw is on Saturday with a minimum jackpot of P30 million.
Originally posted at 02:20 pm | Thursday, July 05, 2012