It is the first time in the history of the Lotto game that so many winners have claimed a single jackpot...and the chance of the number combination that played on Saturday night you might say is one in a million but for twenty people it is a gamble that finally paid off. When 7News arrived at the offices of the Tropical Gaming Company on Queen Street it was filled to capacity but the excitement in the room was not about the amount collected by each winner but the number of persons who actually picked the winning numbers one, two, three, four and five. According to Tropical Gaming they were expecting seventeen of the twenty winners for the fifty thousand dollar jackpot today.
7News caught up with three of them as they waited in line to collect their cheque that amounted to just over two thousand dollars each. That rather paltry sum is how much you get when you split the $50,0000 jackpot 20 ways.
And while those winners counted their mixed blessing, they were in the company of one true big winner fifty two year old farmer Lorenzo Garcia who was the lone winner of the October fourteenth jackpot of seventy seven thousand, five hundred dollars. So, it was a study in contrasts: the historic group of twenty with their singular distinction, but a shared jackpot, and the quite unremarkable feat of a lone winner, but one who got to lord over his winnings, alone. We start with some of the historic 20.
Jacqueline Godwin,
“Naida when you picked the numbers did you expect so many other people would have won?”
Naida Garcia, $50,000 Lotto Winner
“I didn’t believe that so many other people would have got it because this is too little for so much people but I have to try again to get the big one because this won’t be enough for me.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“How long were you playing these numbers?”
Naida Garcia,
“Well for more than a year I’ve been playing these numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“Why what’s so special about these set of numbers?”
Naida Garcia,
“It’s nothing special, just because I like it. 1,2,3,4,5.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“Do you know how much money you will be taking home?”
Naida Garcia,
“Well maybe about $2,000 or something.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“So you’re going to try again?”
Naida Garcia,
“I’ll try again to see if I can get the big one.”
Rosella Nolberto, $50,000 Lotto Winner
“It is my grandkids and kids’ age.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“So when you heard that you had won, immediately you thought I win $50,000 and then when you heard well several other people had won and then you finally got the figure of 20 what went through your mind?”
Rosella Nolberto,
“Hmm I said well the record bruk and its so many people because usually its one or two. So I said the record bruk and I am in it.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“You will continue playing Lotto?”
Rosella Nolberto,
Yeah.”
Benjamin Perez, $50,000 Lotto Winner
“All the time I di buy the numbers. Sometimes I change the numbers but this number I’ve been buying for like three weeks.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“1,2,3,4,5.”
Benjamin Perez,
“Yes, the numbers I played.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“Did you expect that so many other people would have won?”
Benjamin Perez,
“No because yesterday I came here and the lady told me that 20 people win the same number. I asked how much I will because that is a lil bi but its alright, its good.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“You won $77,500 jackpot Lotto draw from October 14th. Nobody else won so you will be taking home a lot of money. How do you feel about this?”
Lorenzo Garcia, $77,500. Lotto Winner
“I feel good because you know this is the first time I got a lil money like this. I told my daughter now I can get the vehicle that I’ve had all the time in my mind, a four wheel drive because where I have my farm there is a lot of mud so I have problem because we had a small Toyota, the single one and so it all the time stuck and now I will get rid of he and buy a next one because I have a lot of things to take out of my farm. I have coco, I have cassava, plantain, and then pon top I have a lot of fruit trees. I got lot of pear trees, mango trees, and coconut, I have about 45 coconut trees.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“How long have you been playing Lotto and why the numbers 9,10, 12, 20, and 21?”
Lorenzo Garcia,
“I just think it out in my like say the 9 is the year we are right now and the 10 is September on St. George’s Caye Day they call it and then the 12 that is the 12 months of the year and the 20 is 2000 and then the 21st is independence day. That is the way how I took it out.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“You won from October 14th. How come you’re just coming in today to clear your money?”
Lorenzo Garcia,
“Because I tell you I keep in my farm, in the bush, and so when I came out yesterday my daughter tell me I win the Lotto from last week. I tell her come she didn’t come and tell me. She said because the road is far and she can’t go on bike and me dah gial and so I don’t trust to go on that road. So she told me. When I went and asked Venus in Belmopan they told me yes it’s true.”
According to our calculation, with the purchase of a single ticket your chance of winning the Lotto jackpot is about 1 in 237,000.
