He has 52m reasons to smile

By Wang Jingqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-10 08:39

When it rains, it pours. That's what a lottery buyer in Anyang, Henan province, must have felt, albeit with the greatest of pleasant twist.

The Henan native spent just 176 yuan to buy 88 lottery tickets, and couldn't believe his luck when the winners were declared on Thursday.

The windfall was an astronomical 359.9 million yuan ($52.7 million), making him by far the biggest winner on the Chinese mainland in 22 years.

The last record winner was a Gansu province resident, who won 113 million yuan in 2007.

Five other people - in Beijing, Shanghai, Shanxi and Heilongjiang provinces, and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region - had also bought a winning ticket each this time. They will be richer by 4.1 million yuan.

Lottery tickets are sold on the Chinese mainland to raise money for government welfare services or sports development.

And winners are required to collect their takings within two months after paying 20 percent of the amount as tax.

The Henan winner, whose identity is not known because winners' privacy is protected under Chinese laws, has to pay about 72 million yuan as tax.

About 84.6 billion yuan worth of lottery tickets were sold in the country from January to August this year, a year-on-year rise of 22.4 percent.

(China Daily 10/10/2009 page1)