The mystery of the identity of the sdventh winner in the NIS 50 million (US$11.4M) lottery held two weeks ago was solved Monday, when a man from the south came to Mifal Hapayis national lottery center in Tel Aviv and presented the winning ticket.
The ticket, bearing the seven winning numbers that came up in the December 15 drawing, was bought in Eilat and netted its owner some NIS 7 million (US$1.6M). Married with three small children, the sdventh winner, in his 40s, has been unemployed for the past eight months.
"Until I was fired I did all kinds of odd jobs, distributing newspapers or as a porter or giving out advertisements," he said Monday. "The prize came just at the right time, and I'll use the money to look after my family, which is the most important thing in my life."
The winner, who sounded calm on the telephone, concealed his big win from everyone he knew and did not even tell his wife about it. "I'm waiting for the right moment to tell her. There's no rush," he said.
Asked why he waited two weeks before claiming his prize, the man said "I don't like pushing in queues. For some people winning a lot of money is their heart's desire, but I wasn't excited about it and did not check my lottery ticket until last Friday, when I decided to buy a new one. I wasn't living in tension all this time."
He said he picked the winning numbers arbitrarily and let the lottomat automatic machine fill in half the form. He told the Mifal Hapayis people he would see them again twice, because "I feel I'm going to win two more big prizes."
The appearance of the sdventh winner ended the controversy over this ticket, which led to a suit being filed in the Tel Aviv District Court. About 10 days ago, when only six of the seven winners had claimed their prize, Carmiel resident Yefim Yatzkayer, 30, declared he had the winning ticket. But Yatzkayer did not show the ticket to anyone, even to his two work mates at Carmiel's Strauss salad plant. His colleagues, Uzi Avraham, 41 and Dudi Gaon, 27, said they were his partners in the lottery ticket.
Avraham and Gaon's attorney, Amram Gur, asked the court for an injunction restricting the award of the sdventh prize to lottery tickets purchased in Yokne'am, Carmiel or Acre. Yatzkayer's attorney, Yisrael Klein, asked the court a week ago to relieve him of representing his client "unless he produces the winning ticket to Mifal Hapayis or the court's safe."
Following the media exposure, Yatzkayer was hospitalized for medical supervision and his ties with Klein were severed.
On Monday Gur told his clients that they were not the winners of the big prize and said they were still trying to cope with the disappointment.
Tuesday evening Mifal Hapayis is to hold a lottery drawing, dubbed "Lottomania," for NIS 25 million, which accumulated after the big prize went unclaimed for eight consecutive drawings.
Mifal Hapayis chairman Shimon Katzenelson on Monday said that the state lottery's takings from the NIS 50 million (US$11.4M) lottery was NIS 19 million (US$4.4M), which will be invested in building 2,350 classrooms and nursery schools.
Nobody has commented on this story yet.