• A Gauteng man has won nearly R38 million in the National Lottery.
• The winner has been playing the same numbers for years but almost changed his mind at the last minute.
• He plans to erect a tombstone for his father and ensure his mom has a comfortable life.

An entrepreneur from Gauteng plans to use his Lotto jackpot of nearly R38 million to erect a tombstone for his late father and ensure that his mother lives a comfortable life. But he's not planning on telling a soul about his winnings – not even his mother.

"Since finding out that I won the jackpot, I have not been able to sleep. I have mixed emotions. At some point I am calm, the next I am nervous, I have had a roller coaster of emotions for the last couple of days," the winner said.

"I started playing the Lottery when I was 19 years old and I have always been hopeful that one day I will strike it lucky, but this life-changing win has come as a big shock and surprise to me."

National Lottery Operator Ithuba said it was thrilled to announce that the Lotto jackpot for the Wednesday 29 July draw had been won by one lucky player, who pocketed a cool R37 951 526.20.

"Ithuba has located the winner, a self-employed entrepreneur based in Gauteng. He spent R20 on his ticket and manually selected his winning Lotto numbers of 06 16 23 26 33 48, and bonus number 07."

Almost changed his mind

The winner, who has been playing the same manually selected numbers for years, almost changed his mind at the last minute.

"I have been playing the same numbers for the past four years, not only for Lotto but for PowerBall and Daily Lotto. I wanted to play the Quick Pick selection because I thought I have been playing the same numbers for years and the maximum amount I have won was R1 200 in the Daily Lotto draw early this year.

"So I thought maybe it's time I changed my playing strategy. I asked the cashier for a Quick Pick selection, but before I gave her the money, my gut told me that today might be the day I strike it lucky and opted to play the same numbers manually."

The winner said the day after the draw he logged on to the National Lottery social media pages to check the winning numbers.

"I saw that one person had won and wondered who the lucky person might be, and, as per usual, I started to dream about what I would do with the money.

"As I was checking the numbers, I realised that these are some of the numbers I usually play. It was only after the fifth number that my heart began racing and I realised I might be the jackpot winner.

Slept with winning ticket under pillow

"I slept with the ticket under my pillow for two nights and kept on waking up every hour to check if indeed I'm the holder of the lucky jackpot-winning ticket and not dreaming.

"I am not planning on telling any member of my family, including my mother. I'm scared that if I tell her, she might get excited and tell her best friend by mistake and that might cause me unwanted problems and will compromise my safety".

When asked about the first thing he plans to do with his newfound fortune, he said he was planning on buying a car for his business because it requires him to travel around the province to meet his clients.

He also wants to extend his mother's house to a double-storey and erect a tombstone for his late father.

He will only buy himself a proper house in one of the province's exclusive housing estates next year because he does not want people to suspect he is the winner of the Lotto jackpot. He will invest a small amount towards growing his business and the rest he will invest to make sure he and his mother live a comfortable life for many years to come.

Big winners 

"We are so excited to have created yet another instant millionaire in a space of four months. Our first major 2020 winner won a massive R135 million PowerBall jackpot in April 2020. This was soon followed by the R77 million PowerBall winner from the 30 June draw, and the R15 million Lotto PLUS1 winner from the 1 July draw.

"The biggest jackpot so far was won by a player from KwaZulu-Natal who won the biggest PowerBall PLUS jackpot ever of R153 million in our 10 July draw using their Standard Bank app. We promised to offer big jackpots and we are happy that we have been able to offer these big amounts to our players," said Busisiwe Msizi, head of corporate relations at Ithuba.

Ithuba offered trauma counselling and financial advice to the winner, as part of its winner services package, that comes at no cost to winners of R50 000 and above.