Couple plans grand wedding after lotto jackpot

Finally, a woman’s dream of having a grand church wedding with her partner of four years is just weeks away from reality, thanks to the more than P44-million jackpot prize she won in the recent draw of Mega Lotto 6/45.

Since January last year, the unemployed woman from Pangasinan province would scrimp on her household budget so she could save up some change from the earnings of her partner, a jeepney driver. She would regularly place a P20 bet in the hopes of winning enough for a church wedding.

Then, the 29-year-old mother of one got lucky: She was the sole player to correctly pick the winning number combination 11-23-33-37-44-45 in the April 29 draw.

The winner availed herself of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) lucky pick feature, which electronically picks a combination for the player.  Her P20 ticket won her P44,258,488.

For the safety and security of the winner, the PCSO does not reveal the identity of draw winners.

“It’s really my dream that we be wed in church so that our union will be legal,” the winner told the PCSO vice chair and general manager, Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, when she claimed her prize at the PCSO head office on Friday.

After spending part of her winnings for her upcoming wedding party, the winner told Rojas that she would use part of the prize money to buy a fleet of jeepneys that her partner would manage.

She also plans to use her winnings to buy her family a house and lot, while saving the rest for the future needs of her 3-year-old son.

5 existing games

Since the start of the year, over a dozen lotto players have won and claimed the PCSO’s jackpot prizes. The PCSO has five existing games, that could win players at least P6 million nightly.

These games are Lotto 6/42, which has a minimum guaranteed prize of P6 million; Mega Lotto 6/45 (P9 million), Super Lotto 6/49 (P16 million), Grand Lotto 6/55 (P30 million), and the newest Ultra Lotto 6/58 (P50 million).

Lotto players have at least a year to claim their prizes before it reverts to the PCSO’s charity fund, which supports the agency’s flagship Individual Medical Assistance Program that subsidizes the hospital bills, among others, of Filipino patients in need of financial help.

For every peso earned by the PCSO, 55 percent goes to the prize fund, 30 percent to the charity fund, and the remaining 15 percent to PCSO operations since the agency does not receive any funding from the national government. With a report from Carmela Canonizado, trainee