Student, 19, wins P33-M lotto prize

CURIOSITY about the lottery made a timid college student the country’s youngest lotto winner, claiming on Monday the almost P33-million jackpot prize in the March 28 draw of the Mega Lotto 6/45.

The 19-year-old from Pasig City, who will graduate next year, now has P32,940,388 at his disposal, being the sole player to correctly guess the winning number combination 20-24-19-44-16-30.

He got the winning numbers from his and his family’s birthdates and ages, the student told Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) vice chair and general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II.  He bought only two tickets, worth P40 when he hit the jackpot prize last week, the winner added.

Rojas said he was a bit “shocked” but happy when he learned that the agency’s latest winner is a teenager, the “youngest” in the lottery’s two-decade run. The minimum legal age to play the

PCSO’s games is 18 years old.

Allowance

When the winner claimed his prize at the PCSO head office in Mandaluyong City, he told Rojas that he began playing the lottery just last year “out of curiosity.”

“He said he doesn’t place a bet every day; just on days when he feels interested in playing the lotto,” Rojas said. “On those days, he would use part of his allowance to buy a ticket,” the PCSO official added.

Rojas reminded the student to “take extra care” of his winnings, to “use it wisely” and not to brag about it on social media.

Already, the winner has plans for his winnings: put up a business he had yet to decide on, and buy his parents a house and lot. He’d be saving the rest of his winnings for his and his family’s future needs, the student added.

Although the PCSO does not reveal the identity of its winners for security reasons, Rojas assured the public that its lotto winners are real. In fact, the official added, the PCSO recently received an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification, attesting to the agency’s process of drawing the lotto winner as being “aboveboard.”

Apart from PCSO’s Rojas, only the Commission on Audit, the Bureau of Treasury and the Land Bank of the Philippines, where winners encash their prize, know the identity of the lotto winners.