The National Lottery is one of the most popular games in South Africa. Even if you don’t play, you’ll likely know what the game is all about. Image: Adobe Stock.
‘Stop or die’: Lotto winner shares how he blew R236 million
A 61-year-old man opens up about winning R236 million Lotto jackpot at 34 years and shares why he had stop partying.
The National Lottery is one of the most popular games in South Africa. Even if you don’t play, you’ll likely know what the game is all about. Image: Adobe Stock.
An Irish man, who bagged R236 million jackpot opens up about how his life changed after winning the lottery.
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MAN BAGS R236 MILLION
IOL reports that the Irish man, Peter Lavery who won R236 million in 1996 worked as a bus driver for 11 years in Northern Ireland.
Lavery tells Belfast Live that he was earning £200 (R4698) a week for 11 years and instantly became one of the richest people in Northern Ireland overnight.
“It was the biggest upheaval of my whole life. Sunday morning I’m driving a bus round Belfast, then by Wednesday I was in St Lucia in a top resort.”
“A friend who knew his numbers had called and said he’d won the jackpot. Thinking it was a wind up (joke), Lavery went home to bed and did not check his numbers until the next morning. But out of 33.3 million people who had bought a ticket that night, only he had the right six numbers.”
When he finally quit his job he booked a holiday to the Caribbean and took ten individuals on his trip, including friends and relatives.
They stayed for two weeks, then he took 22 people to New York for St. Patrick’s Day (a religious and cultural holiday held on 17 March) including his siblings, friends and ex-colleagues.
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DOCTORS SAID ‘STOP OR DIE’
The 61-year-old man who won a whopping £10.2 million (R236 million) at 34 years adds that he bought a new family home and another of his own.
He also began drinking heavily and reportedly took other elicit substances and also spent his riches on automobiles, and spent half a million UK pounds in the first couple of years on Jaguars, Bentleys, and a couple of four wheel drive cars.
Lavery received a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, and his doctor advised him to give up his partying ways.
“I did not drink every day, but once I got a drink in me I just did not want to go home so I would be out in Belfast until four or five in the morning. It’s nothing to be proud of.”
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