P125-M lotto pot seen

The jackpot prize for the 6/55 Grand Lotto of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is expected to reach P125 million after nobody hit the winning combination at last Wednesday’s draw.

No ticket sold had the six-number combination of 55-47-24-20-39-37, said Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, PCSO general manager.

Close to 22,000 ticket holders, however, won the low-tier prizes, he added. There were 12 that got P150,000 each for guessing five out of the six-number combination; 837 who got four out of the six numbers won P2,000 each; and 20,963 won P150 each for getting three correct numbers.

The jackpot prize for last Wednesday night’s draw reached P113,547,520.80.

Rojas said this was the second time this year that the online lottery jackpot breached the P100-million mark.

He said the prize for Saturday’s draw might still be larger than projected depending on ticket sales. “The bigger the prize, the higher the sales of tickets,” Rojas said.

He disclosed that ticket sales began to rise from an average of P20 million to over P30 million per draw after the jackpot prize breached the P100-million mark.

The PCSO said that it had released P1,803,522,466.50 to 82 winners who have won jackpot prizes, from P3 million to P341 million in the different lotto games, since January this year.

The 6/55 Grand Lotto game generated the biggest jackpot prize of P740 million in November last year. It was won by a balikbayan (a returning Filipino).

Meanwhile, while no one hit the jackpot for the 6/55 grand Lotto game, a lone bettor became P38 million richer for correctly guessing the correct number combination for the Megalotto 6/45 draw last Wednesday.

The PCSO is the principal government agency mandated to generate funds for health programs and charities to help poor Filipinos.