Lottery winners have interesting stories to tell about how they instantly became millionaires, and this man is no different.
US Vietnam-era veteran Raymond Roberts from Fall River, Massachusetts, US, has been playing the lottery for more than two decades.
On one evening he decided not to purchase one, but six tickets.
“His intuition told him: don’t just buy one ticket, buy six. And don’t just use any numbers, use the exact same numbers on each ticket. As luck would have it, Raymond Roberts’ numbers came in and were worth $390,000 each as a cash prize.”
In rands that equates to R6.6-million per ticket. By following his intuition and not changing his mind he became a multi-millionaire.
Roberts decided to take a lumpsum payment for five of the tickets, which equated to $2 million (R33,916,800).
“For the sixth ticket, he chose the annuity option- meaning he will also get 20 annual payments of $25,000 (R424,522).”
The lottery awards a set amount for selecting the correct numbers, as Mr Roberts did, meaning that it is possible to win with the same set of numbers.
The winning numbers Mr Roberts chose were a carefully concocted combination of birthdays and anniversary dates. He had used them on other lottery tickets, on other days, but had not won anything. This did not deter him in any way.
Opening up about his plans with the cash, Mr Roberts said he planned to buy himself a brand-new motorbike. He’ll be taking to the road with it before planning what to do with the rest of the money.
“According to the rules of the game, the odds of winning just the $25,000 for life prize are one in 1,813,028.”
Clearly the odds were in Mr Roberts favour.
Source: Jacaranda FM, Mirror, BBC News, image from Twitter: @rtenews