100 million rubles awaiting their owner
100 million rubles are awaiting their owner! On 19.03.2009 a ticket with such a super prize was drawn, for the first time in the history of the Russian lottery. A man has already called “Gosloto” and said that it was he who had bought the ticket for one hundred million. The millionaire lives in the town of Kolpino, in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg. The topic will be developed by the correspondent of the Business FM Svetlana Weismann.
He got the lucky ticket! Of 360 combinations the resident of Kolpino got 6 main figures. Such an amount was drawn in the All-Russia State Lottery for the first time, says Mikhail Zharkov, an official representative of “Gosloto”:
“This super prize has been formed by our company. Our lottery has been operating since October 27th, 2008, and in fact it is naturally the first case for us, the unprecedented one indeed, as it is not only for us but for entire Russia. Now we will be making a decision on the further destiny of the super prize, on its amount.”
The owner of the lucky ticket is now to submit his ticket for the expert investigation (according to the specialists, it is virtually impossible to forge “Gosloto” tickets) and to receive his prize. The resident of Kolpino will have to pay 13% of taxes from one hundred million. The state lottery is a globally accepted practice. Almost all the countries draw the population’s money to the budget this way. However, the prize fund is usually formed at the expense of selling the tickets, and it is not clear where “Gosloto” has found the money for the super prize. Evidently, 100 million were specially allotted for a powerful PR action. Another large player is entering the lottery market – the state one as well, from “Rossvyaz” [Russian Communications]. A comment by the gaming business expert Evgeniy Kovtun:
“The lottery is still on the stage of promotion and, to be honest, it is vague so far how it will work, particularly in the crisis environment. In addition, “Gosloto” Lottery has competitors who have not started yet – it is almost an equal lottery to be held by “Gossvyaz”. And if we have 2 state lotteries at the same time, the state competing with itself, then I don’t even know how the situation may be concluded. As the situation is rather odd.”
“Rossvyaz” planned to launch its game last year. Conditions are a bit tougher than in “Gosloto”: players are to guess six figures not of 36 but of 49. Russian Communications are going to support the Russian IT sector at the expense of the lottery proceedings. The money will be used for the project “A computer to each household” and also for various grants to talented programmers. “Gosloto” specializes in supporting sports. All in all, over 800 various lotteries are held in Russia.
Business fm