Most people would assume that after a multimillion-dollar lottery win, a person would have already had their luck and there would not be much point in buying another ticket.
However, a man in southern France has won the jackpot for the second time in 15 years by playing the same numbers.
The man, an industrial worker from Montpellier who is in his 50s and wants to remain anonymous, first won the lottery in 1996, taking home the equivalent in francs of 2.8 million euros (US$4 million).
He kept playing the same winning numbers, spending 1,000 euros a month on various games.
Last month, he won a second jackpot of more than 3 million euros.
He said he had a “lucky star.”
When he was awarded his first check by lottery bosses in 1996, they jokingly asked him to keep supporting the game by continuing to play.
He has been playing the same numbers since the French lottery started in 1976.
“The first time I won, I nearly fainted, I went white and had trouble breathing before I really believed it,” the man told the BFMTV news channel.
“This time, I took it all a lot more calmly, but with the same joy and the same gratitude towards fate,” he said.
He said he had invested his first winnings in business and planned to invest the second win for his two children’s inheritance.
The French lottery body, La Francaise des Jeux, said that there was “one in more than a billion chance” of winning twice.
There have been a handful of repeat lottery wins in France in the past 30 years, including one man who twice won 2.8 million in three years.
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