$3.7 million transferred to Vietnam’s first jackpot winner

By Phuong Dong   October 18, 2016 | 03:02 am PT
$3.7 million transferred to Vietnam’s first jackpot winner
Nguyen Quoc Thai wears a mask at the ceremony to receive a $4 million jackpot prize in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of Vietlott
A woman from the Mekong Delta bought the ticket and her father received the prize on her behalf.

Vietnam’s first jackpot winner received $3.7 million through a bank transfer on Tuesday.

State-owned lottery company Vietlott organized a ceremony to award the prize in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday afternoon, but the actual money has been paid through a single bank transfer for safety reasons.

Nguyen Quoc Thai, 58, from the Mekong Delta’s Tra Vinh Province, attended the ceremony and received the money on behalf of his daughter, who chose the lucky numbers - 05-21-31-33-38-42.

The jackpot prize was VND92 billion, or $4 million, but Thai had to pay 10 percent in income tax.

At his request, the press was not allowed to attend the ceremony.

His daughter is the first jackpot winner since the American-style game Mega 6/45 launched in Vietnam in July. The 39th draw was announced on Sunday evening.

The woman has no plans on how to spend the money yet, except for giving some of it to charity. She plans to continue her job of selling pork.

Vietlott, or the Vietnam Computerized Lottery One Member Limited Liability Company, in January signed an exclusive 18-year contract with Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya to launch computerized lottery games.

Players select six numbers from 1 to 45 and win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers from the draw. The jackpot prize will keep growing until there is a winner. The odds of winning are extremely low, believed to be around one in 8.14 million.

The next jackpot will drop back to VND12 billion ($538,000) for the draw on Wednesday.

The Mega game is now available in Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho and several southern provinces. Vietlott has plans to expand to Da Nang, Hanoi and other places in central and northern Vietnam soon.

Traditional lottery tickets in Vietnam have predetermined numbers printed on them, with the highest prize set at VND1.5 billion ($65,900). Vietnam’s average annual income was around $2,100 last year, according to the World Bank.

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

Related news:

'We couldn’t sleep all night': Mekong Delta family celebrates $4 mln lottery win

Lucky Sunday: Vietnamese ticketholder wins $4 million lottery jackpot

 
 
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