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A 60-year-old woman who reported finding 2,000 year-end jumbo lottery tickets worth 600,000 yen at Tochigi City Hall in Tochigi Prefecture on Dec 28, is actually the owner of the tickets.
The woman told Japanese media that she wanted to donate the tickets but was too shy to do so directly, so she pretended to find them in an elevator of the administrative building’s parking garage, Sankei Shimbun reported Tuesday.
The tickets were inside a paper bag along with a handwritten note which said: "If any of these tickets win a prize in the lottery, please use the money to help victims of storm disasters,” addressed to the Tochigi city mayor.
Police had been looking for the owner, and the woman came forward at the end of January. Police confirmed that they in fact belonged to her based on analysis of her handwriting and returned all 2,000 tickets to her.
The woman told police she found out that the tickets would be taken by the prefecture rather than the city if the owner remained unknown, so she decided to come forward and reclaim the tickets in order to re-donate them to the city.
A city official said that 220 tickets out of the 2,000 won 5th and 6th prizes which were worth 120,000 yen in total.
City officials said they will spend the money according to the woman's wishes on repair work following last September's storm damage.
© Japan Today
21 Comments
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Hasan Az-Zaki Rahim
Please congratulate her!
clueless
Why play if you are just gonna give it all away?
Kira Minaki
Such a sweet lady!
Tahoochi
I think it's very interesting; for better or for worse, this is how Japanese society influences the way people think here. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down"... in this case, "the nail that sticks out even for a good reason..."
sf2k
So instead of donating 600,000 yen directly to an aid non-for-profit, she blew it on lottery tickets, at a major loss. The lottery corp made the most here
DaDude
No reason for people to knock the lottery because you aren't into it. It is my favorite form of gambling because if you lose, you lose the money slowly unlike Pachinko where your money disappears in minutes.
wontond
Her heart was in the right spot.
Danny Bloom
Sweet obasan. but... Her elevator doesn't go all the way to the top of that admin parking garage.
serendipitous
Lotteries are just a tax on those who aren't too good at mathematics.
Serrano
Nice lady.
ThonTaddeo
Here heart was in the right place, but her head wasn't. As things turned out, the government got Y480,000 (the price of the losing tickets) and the disaster victims will get Y120,000.
She should have just handed the cash to the victims directly without The State taking most of it.
Disillusioned
Sadly, ¥120,000 is not gonna do a flipping thing to help the victims. She's a kind hearted old lady, but I think she has a few screws loose as well.
nakanoguy01
her heart was in the right place. it's just too bad her brain wasn't.
riceballs
The lottery isn't called "the stupid tax" for nothing.
gogogo
So she was "taxed" 480,000 yen in other words.
Alex Einz
although a good soul, that light upstairs wasn't too bright ....
A.N. Other
At 300 yen a ticket, she'll have just about broken even.
riceballs
Ha! You must work for the Bank of Japan, mate. 600,000 yen in lottery tickets, 120,000 yen in winnings = a loss of 480,000 yen.
SenseNotSoCommon
A 20% return on her investment. Try Pachinko next time?
GW
Hey lady that turned out to be a pretty bad investment haha!!
Wait I have to go check my tickets to see if I won anything!!! : )
riceballs
I wanted to comment, but I was too shy to type anything.