Manila bettor wins P640.6 million lotto prize

MANILA, Philippines — A lone bettor in Manila won the P640.6-million jackpot of the Super Lotto 6/49 draw on Tuesday night.

The P640.6 million is said to be the second highest jackpot won by a single bettor in the history of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO)’s lotto games, which started in 1995.

The highest is P741.1 million, won by a New York-based Filipino who was on vacation in the country in November 2010.

Melquiades Robles, PCSO general manager and vice chairman of the board, said the winner – who placed a bet with a lotto outlet along Rizal Avenue in Manila – guessed the winning combination 26-33-14-48-06-42 for Tuesday night’s draw, which carried a jackpot of exactly P640,654,817.60.

“Congratulations to the winner,” Robles told The STAR in a phone interview.

“The jackpot winner is definitely a big winner. But the PCSO has also been a big winner because of the steady high lotto sales we have been seeing every day since we topped up the jackpot of the lotto games under our ‘Handog Pakabog’ program last December,” he added.

Robles said the winner is among the millions of players who patronized the lotto games and contributed to the high daily sales seen by the PCSO since the program to promote lotto was launched on Dec. 15, 2023.

There were also 173 bettors who won P50,000 each for guessing five of the six-digit winning combination for Tuesday night’s draw.

The PCSO set the jackpot of the Super Lotto 6/49 to a minimum of P500 million on Dec. 30 under its “Handog Pakabog” campaign.

The agency also set the jackpots of its Regular Lotto 6/42 and the Mega Lotto 6/45 to a minimum of P100 million. The jackpots of the Ultra Lotto 6/58 and Grand Lotto 6/55 were set to a minimum of P500 million.

The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law imposes a 20 percent tax on all lotto winnings above P10,000.