400 Lotre Wins: Masing Kantong Rp140 Million Each, The Philippine Senate Wants Investigation
JAKARTA - A lottery lottery in the Philippines sparked calls for an investigation, after more than 400 people came out as winners with a combination of a nine-folding number.
Those numbers are 9, 18, 27, 36, 45 and 54. According to the BBC, Grand Lotto participants must choose six numbers from one to 55.
They won when the six selected numbers matched those pulled by the cooperative operator.
It was filed last Saturday night by the Philippine Amal Undian Office (PCSO), a 236 million Grand Loto totaling Filipino pesos (Rp61,088,897,383) distributed to 433 winners, Bloomberg reported.
This is the highest number of people who have won Grand Lotto. Each of them brought more than 545,000 Philippine pesos or around Rp140,770,678
The minority leader of the Philippines's Koko Pimentel wrote in a Facebook post, the "extraordinary and unusual" result of the Grand Lotto Saturday requires an investigation.
"I will propose a resolution, because this is my concern, this lottery game was approved by the Republic of the Philippines," he said, launching CNA Oct. 5.
"Therefore, we need to maintain and protect the integrity of the gambling game that we have allowed," he continued.
Pinmentel also said he would seek the opinion of statistic and mathematical experts regarding the results of the PCSO draw.
Separately, senator Risa Hontiveros said in a statement he supports the investigation to rule out perceptions, the covert results have been "impulated".
"We also want to make sure the system is safe, free from disruption and trustworthy," he explained.
PCSOs, owned by the government, show that in a press conference, Filipinos tend to be betting on "ranked numbers".
PCSO general manager Melquiades Robles said in a Facebook post on Sunday, lottery "is an opportunity game, nothing is for sure and cannot be controlled".