Vietnamese lottery player hits new record $5.8 million jackpot

By Minh Son   July 19, 2017 | 07:25 am PT
It's the biggest win for an individual since the American style lottery was launched in July last year.

One lucky lottery player won a jackpot of VND131.92 billion (over $5.8 million) on Wednesday, according to Vietlott, the operator of an American-style lottery.

After tax, the owner of the ticket with the winning numbers 04-07-13-20-35-44 would be bagging home around VND119 billion.

Wednesday's jackpot is now the biggest win for an individual since the launch of the Mega 6/45 game, beating the previous record of VND112.47 billion set in May.

However the game's largest ever jackpot of VND160 billion was found on last year's Christmas Day draw, which was split between two winners.

In January last year, Vietlott signed an exclusive 18-year contract with Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya to launch computerized lottery games.

The Mega 6/45 game is the company's first foray into the market. Players select six numbers from 1 to 45 and win a jackpot that starts at VND12 billion ($538,000) by matching all six numbers from the draw. Each ticket costs VND10,000 (40 cents).

The jackpot keeps rolling over until there is a winner, and the odds of selecting the right numbers are around one in 8.14 million.

Vietnam does not generally allow its citizens to gamble, but lottery tickets are popular across the country.

Vietnamese people spent about $13 billion on lottery tickets from 2011 through 2015, helping the industry’s revenue to grow on average by 12 percent per year, according to a government agency.

The combined revenue from lottery companies in 21 southern provinces hit $3 billion last year, three-times higher than in 2007, Bloomberg cited Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance as saying.

Traditional lottery tickets in Vietnam have predetermined numbers printed on them, with the highest prize set at VND1.5 billion ($65,900).

Facing tough competition from Vietlott’s Mega game, the companies behind these traditional tickets decided to raise the top prize by 33 percent to VND2 billion in 2017.

 
 
go to top