An anonymous Jamaican mother welcomed the new year in style as she finally collected JMD 100,000,000 (around $644,000) in lottery winnings. According to Loop Jamaica News, the Supreme Ventures Gaming Limited (SVG) customer recently claimed the prize after the winning numbers were drawn in October last year.
“I didn’t know how to react when I saw my numbers come up on the draw. It is such an amazing feeling, I’m so happy,” she said. “The first thing I’ll be doing is putting some of the money into an investment account, ‘cause me nah bruk again!”
The single mother also said she’ll invest some of the money in her children as well as their education. “I had a rough childhood, and I don’t want my children to go through that so they are also my top priority. I’ll make sure their future is good and they don’t have to worry about anything,” she said.
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The Senior Vice President of Retail and Customer Operations at Supreme Ventures Limited, Dwayne Tulloch, also said they were “very happy to transform the life of another Jamaican through our jackpot winnings.”
“It’s a great note on which to start the year after producing so many jackpot winners in 2023,” he added. “We look forward to making even more winners in 2024.”
The $644,000 lottery jackpot adds up to other huge sums that were won in 2023. The other amounts won last year included $405,000 (February), $289,000 (March), and $315,000 (May). Another $225,000 was also won in May, but it wasn’t claimed.
Lottery winners in Jamaica typically disguise themselves when collecting their winnings for safety reasons. “Unfortunately, Jamaica is not like other markets. In other markets, they don’t necessarily do it, but here I think they opt to do it to keep themselves safe,” Simone Clarke-Cooper, a former assistant vice-president of Group Corporate Communications at Supreme Ventures Limited (the lottery company) told Jamaica Star in 2018.
“We are not going to tell them not to do that because their safety is of paramount importance to us as well.”
