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Vietnam's $3 million lottery jackpot has a winner: operator

By Phuong Dong November 2, 2016 | 08:58 pm GMT+7

Vietlott announces the new winner less than three weeks after a lucky family in the south claimed an even larger jackpot.

Vietlott, the operator of an American-style lottery game, on Wednesday said there's a new winner for the top prize of nearly $3 million, less than three weeks after a lucky family in the south claimed an even larger jackpot.

The state-owned company announced 03-05-08-10-13-22 as the winning numbers for Wednesday's draw of the Mega 6/45, which debuted in July.

The winner now has 60 days to come forward and claim the prize of more than VND64.8 billion ($2.9 million), either in Ho Chi Minh City or the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, Vietlott said. The identity of the lucky person is still unknown.

For months the Mega 6/45 had not announced any top prize winner, until around three weeks ago.

Nguyen Quoc Thai, 58, from the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh, on October 18 attended a ceremony in HCMC to collect a jackpot of VND92.03 billion ($4.04 million) on behalf of his daughter. The family had to pay 10 percent in income tax.

There has been much media fanfare around the lucky family and their win, which is without a doubt a very large sum of money in a country where the average annual income is only around $2,100.

This first win has apparently served as the best publicity possible for Vietlott.

Vietnam generally does not allow its citizens to gamble, but lottery tickets are popular across the country.

Vietlott, or Vietnam Computerized Lottery One Member Limited Liability Company, in January signed an exclusive 18-year contract with Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya to launch computerized lottery games.

The Mega 6/45 is the company's first foray into the market and will be followed by other services.

In the game, players select six numbers from 1 to 45 and win the jackpot, starting at VND12 billion ($538,000), by matching all six winning numbers from the draw. Each ticket costs VND10,000 (40 cents).

The jackpot prize will keep growing with time and with more players, until there is a winner. The odds of winning are extremely low, believed to be around one in 8.14 million.

Traditional lottery tickets in Vietnam have predetermined numbers printed on them, with the highest prize set at VND1.5 billion ($65,900).