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THE REGULATOR OF the National Lottery was alerted after one lottery player bought tens of thousands of tickets for Ireland’s biggest ever Lotto draw last year, and won money on 45,000 of the tickets.
It is not known how many tickets in total the individual bought. The cost of the 45,000 winning tickets alone would have been €180,000.
The player bought the tickets for the ‘Must be Won’ lotto jackpot in January 2022 which reached €19.6 million after many consecutive rollovers.
The National Lottery had announced that if there was no outright winner, the full value of the prize would flow down to the winners of the next winning prize tiers.
The 45,000 winning tickets were delivered to the National Lottery HQ on Abbey Street
twelve days before the claims period ended, and they were processed in accordance to “strict protocols and in batches allowing for appropriate checking, counting, and reviewing”.
In total, the prizes amounted to €425,813. The player was paid in full on 3 August last year.
The Regulator of the National Lottery met with the operator, the company PLI, in April of last year over concerns about a “large number of prize claims from individual customers as the last day to claim prizes in respect of the Lotto MBW approached”, minutes of a meeting obtained by The Journal via a freedom of information request show.
Several cases of individuals submitting a high number of prize claims for the ‘Must be Won’ draw in January of last year caused it to notify the regulator of the matter from a ‘player protection perspective’, due to the multiple instances of individuals purchasing a high number of tickets.
In a separate instance, another player claimed prizes for 500 winning tickets.
In August, PLI wrote to the regulator to notify them that in March 2022, the claims department was contacted by the “sole claimant” of approximately 45,000 winning tickets from the ‘Must be Won’ draw of 15 January 2022.
The letter shows that PLI carried out “due diligence” in requesting documentation from the claimant, and carried out discussions with the individual, before processing the claims as normal.
PLI’s player protection team also looked into the instance, and were satisfied that the prize winner was not “playing beyond their means”.
The regulator’s Head of Legal and Compliance advised PLI that although the 45,000 tickets were “bearer instruments”, the company had to satisfy itself that there was “no fraud before the tickets were ‘winning tickets’”.
The player did not win the jackpot, and in its correspondence PLI noted that not all of the 45,000 winning tickets were attached to “high value” prizes.
The ‘Must be Won’ draw in January of last year came after a near six months wait for a top prize winner to claim the Lotto jackpot.
The top prize for the Lotto jackpot is capped at €19.06 million. The must-win aspect of the draw was introduced by the National Lottery after it faced mounting public criticism over the seemingly unwinnable jackpot that kept rolling over.
Two matching numbers are needed as a minimum for a Lotto ticket to be worth a prize claim. Some prizes can amount to just a few euros.
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Well done President Trump and President Putin.
@Steve Miller: and president Assad.
@Steve Miller: I’ll second that one!, well done President Trump!…
When will the refugees start going home?
@Steve Miller: 500k have already returned so far this year as the Syrian govt brings more areas under its control.
@Andy Brown: “440,000 internally displaced Syrians and about 31,000 of those who fled abroad have now come back”
Well done to Russia and Trump for putting an end to this war.
@Irreverent Reverend: Unbelievably premature statement. Ceasefires are notorious for breaking down in this region and in this war, it’s absolute madness to say that the war is over.
@Malachi:
Cutting off funding, weapon supplies and supply routes should help.
This conflict has gone on for too long.
@George Vladisavljevic: Where did you see anything about funding being cut?
The US and Russia have struck a tentative deal that seems to be holding, for now, in Southwest Syria. I don’t see anything that suggests the respective countries have abandoned their preferred factions in the region.
Even if they did do such a thing, there are far too many countries involved in this war for a US-Russia agreement to halt funding to any one side. Think of Turkey, Iran, etc. with interests they want to pursue in the region. This kind of thing has happened before and has broken down before.
I agree that it has gone on too long, but that’s hardly a controversial point.
@Malachi:
I believe that if the Russians and the Americans want a ceasefire to hold it will hold atleast for the groups that they back.
ISIS is a different matter, but if they both put pressure on them and their backers, the conflict could be ended relatively soon.
@George Vladisavljevic: As I said, there are more forces at work than just the Russians and Americans. We’ll see how it pans out – but you have to admit that proclaiming the war is over (after what is it, three major failed ceasefires already?) is premature to the extreme.
Not too concerned about the fight against ISIS, that’ll be done relatively soon. It’s the major divisions that still exist in Syria that are going to keep the conflict going between the opposition and Assad.
@Malachi:
I agree with you about other forces being involved and it would be nice to see the US and the Russians in working together to end the conflict. If they did, others such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and others would not have much choice but to stay out, that is if the US and Russia worked together in really wanting to stop the confkict.
US seems to be excepting that Assad will stay in power at least in some parts of Syria…..Departure from the insane Obama policy of regime change with millitary supplies to the so called moderate Sunni rebels…..With IS close to final defeat hopeful signs of end of 6 year Syrian war….
Good news. I can’t see the so called Caliphate playing any part in this though. Not a huge fan of the Russians or Americans but common sense prevailed here, the enemy is ISIS and groups mimicking them.
Only skimmed it but didn’t see a mention of Trump or Putin. AFP are more butthurt than redditors at this point it seems.
This is the action of a New World Order I can get behind!
They might as well there’s nothing left to fight for the whole country’s nearly destroyed.
@Dave Hogan: it’s strategic value will never be destroyed.
@Dave Hogan: that’s not even close to being true. Stop spouting rubbish you clearly don’t know anything about
Trump and Putin got it done. I don’t care who is responsible as long as it can hold off some suffering. Credit where credit is due. Hopefully it can be built upon.
Fake news. Assad warplanes still dropping bombs this morning
@Mr Scientist: The ceasefire covers the Southwest, and so far even rebel sources have said that it is holding. Don’t know where you saw that about Assad warplanes, do you have a link?
@Malachi: @worldonalert twitter. Videos of regine warplanes dropping bombs this morning in Ein Tarma.
@Mr Scientist: You lazy b0l0x. I couldn’t find any link that was less than 3 days old. I’ll have to discount your “facts” until you can provide evidence.
@Virtual Architect: are you incapable of scrolling through a timeline on Twitter. Several put up there today ya sap
@Mr Scientist: I saw a plume of smoke over a city allegedly recorded today, that’s about it. Not terribly convincing I must say. What videos did you see?
Also, why are the rebels not claiming that Assad has violated the ceasefire already? They immediately did so last time he did, in January. If the rebels are not saying Assad’s warplanes violated ceasefire, I’d be very skeptical he did.
@Malachi: what evidence are you basing on the ceasefire is holding? I’m following multiple accounts on Twitter with the people operating within syria saying the ceasefire talk is a joke. Rebels also not following it.
@Mr Scientist: http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/09/us-russian-ceasefire-deal-holding-in-southwest-syria
“A UK-based Syrian observer and several rebel groups in the area said calm was prevailing [...] witnesses reported no warplanes or significant fighting.”
I remember it being all over the media when Assad violated in in January, as I said. No such reports this time, and SOHR would definitely be all over it.
@Malachi: UK based syrian observer is a middle aged man sat in Coventry, I’d take that with a pinch of salt. Reason why violations were reported last time because US were not involved. Suddenly now there the ones to broker it with Russia and all western media outlets say it’s holding. Gimme a break..
@Mr Scientist: I don’t particularly trust SOHR, my point was that he’s pro-rebel and would definitely report on a ceasefire violation if it was all over twitter as you suggest.
US backed forces were involved when there was a major ceasefire attempt at the tail end of 2016. The ceasefire wasn’t brokered by the US that time, sure, but do you really think this is just completely flying under the radar of even pro-rebel sources like SOHR and rebel leadership, who haven’t said a peep?
I did see reports from a few journalists that there were skirmishes and bombings in the “de-escalation zones” set up by the Russians/Turks a while back, but that was before this ceasefire came into effect. No claims of violations within that period have been convincing.
have your say