Liliane Goor of the National Lottery (left) hands over a symbolic check with the amount won to employee Elly Verhoeven of the Total Energies gas station on the Wellens ovonde in Herentals. — © Hans Otten
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The Total Energies gas station along the eaves of clothing store Wellens in Herentals has seen small Lotto winners pass more often in the past fifteen years, but it is the first time that a customer has won more than one million euros.
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Hans Otten
Yesterday at 20:50–
Anyone who wants to enter the sales point of the Herentals gas station of Total Energies in the Cardijnlaan to pay or buy a quick snack can currently not ignore the immense Lotto banner with the amount won: a customer knew here during the drawing on 27 April to shoot the main bird of exactly 1,018,799 euros.
“This win is of course very unexpected, even though I have been playing faithfully since the beginning”, says the lucky winner, who wishes to remain anonymous for the well-known reason. “I always do that at a gas station, but I don’t have any really special numbers. The six numbers on my game ticket clearly matched the winning numbers, yet I checked them at least twenty times. I must honestly say that I am still a bit overwhelmed, to the extent that I have no idea what I am going to do with this wonderful sum. Of course I’m going to save a little, but for the rest I have to think deeply. The possibilities are endless.”
The lucky winner is – of course – not present at the Herentals gas station on Tuesday, so that Liliane Goor of the National Lottery hands over a symbolic check to the employees of the Total Energies gas station in Cardijnlaan in Herentals. “We have a number of regular customers who bring in a Lotto form here every week, casual passers-by who play on the Lotto after refueling are less common,” says employee Elly Verhoeven.
No young people
“The fact that 1 million euros has been won here is of course great publicity,” says Liliane Goor. “Gas stations are gaining in importance for us as a point of sale, their share in the turnover is increasing. We also see, for example, with large pots that more casual customers in a gas station decide to quickly play Lotto after all. But we also notice that it is mainly middle-aged people, and especially men. You also see far fewer young people in the traditional newspaper shops. Unfortunately, they no longer buy newspapers and when they play Lotto, they do it online.”
The lucky winner is the sixteenth to have six correct numbers this year and the twelfth to win more than a million euros. The National Lottery reinvests a large part of the proceeds from the lottery products in all kinds of projects, from cultural to social and scientific to humanitarian. “With 335 million euros a year, we are the largest patron in the country,” says Goor.
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