$30 Million Jackpot Victory: Chinese Gambler Strikes Gold with 50,000 Lottery Tickets Bearing Same Numbers

01:48
08 Dec

We’ve all gone a little bit overboard when buying lottery tickets before. Instead of the usual one or two, we might take home a good chunk of them, assuming that we’ll have a better chance of winning something, at least.

But when we do this, almost without fail, we will choose different numbers for each ticket. Makes sense, right?

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A Chinese man from Nanchang, Jiangxi province, had a different idea. He decided to buy a whopping 50,000 tickets for CNY100,000 — approximately US$14,000 — but all with the same numbers.

Maybe he had a premonition, or something, because it turned out to be the best decision he’d ever made in their life.

When the numbers came in for the Happy 8 lottery, every ticket became a winner, building a prize of CNY220 million — approximately US$30 million.

Another possibility is that the lucky punter was feeling that the Chinese year of the rabbit was about to pay out all of the hope and prosperity it promises.

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A few days after the lottery draw, the man took a trip to the lottery headquarters to claim his massive prize.

There he disclosed some information about himself, telling the lottery staff that he is a long-time player, often playing three or four times each week paying out the equivalent of thousands of dollars.

He estimated that he has spent more than $1 million on tickets in his lifetime, so at least he’s actually up now!

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Skepticism at its Finest

The outrageous win didn’t please everybody, however. Chinese social media was awash with conspiracy theories about a fixed draw.

After all, why would anyone take on such a wager? It just seems unthinkable, and yet here we are.

There were also murmurs about the Chinese government wheeling out a plot to increase interest. The country has several civic lotteries that raise funds for social projects. Who knows.

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