Riga bus driver wins €250,000 in national lottery's Joker game

A 42-year-old resident of Riga who works as a bus driver has won €250,000 in the Joker supplementary draw organized by the state lottery operator Latvijas Loto. The draw took place on Saturday, September 26. The winning ticket, covering five game combinations plus entries into the Joker and Joker 7 supplementary draws, cost €16.50 and was purchased through the online platform iLOTO.

This marks the fifth quarter-million-euro lottery prize awarded in Latvia this year, and the largest payout in the Joker supplementary game since a new prize fund was introduced at the end of August.

A call that changed the evening

The winner recounts that he learned of his prize on Saturday evening after the SuperBingo draw, when he received a call from an unknown number. His first reaction was disbelief, but checking his game account confirmed the winnings were real. He notes that saving enough on a bus driver's salary to buy a home has been very difficult, so the win brings him much closer to owning an apartment in Riga.

Notably, this time the Joker numbers were generated automatically rather than chosen by the player himself, as had usually been the case. He says he had never previously managed to guess more than 20 numbers out of 40, yet this time all six numbers matched perfectly. After learning of the win, he even checked the odds of such an outcome, which he says came out to roughly one in millions.

Hesitation before the purchase

The winner admits he initially hesitated to buy the ticket, reluctant to spend the money, but after researching the supplementary games he decided to take the chance, since he has always preferred playing for maximum stakes rather than small prizes. He adds that he had actually hoped to win the house offered through the SuperBingo draw and would have built it himself, but the cash prize from Joker now gives him another way to reach his long-desired home.