Never too late to have a massive lottery win

Never give up hope of a big lottery win, as a news story of a 97 year old lottery winner last week proved that it is never too late to be a massive lottery winner.  The lucky winner Nguyen Van Het from Vietnam is 97 years old and has won 7.6 billion dong which equates to about £260,000, which in Vietnam is an absolute fortune.  Het was able to purchase 6 Tay Ninh Province lottery tickets with money given to him by a neighbour as a present called ‘Lucky Money’ in celebration of the Lunar New Year or Tet.

Giving money away to well wishers

Nguyen Van Het went to bed and dreamt that he would win the lottery little knowing that this particular dream would come true – with each of the six tickets being a winner. Unfortunately the lottery win did not bring out the best characteristics in the local neighbourhood with one neighbour who was meant to be helping Het to check his numbers telling him he had only won a small amount of cash and a huge mob surrounding his home asking for some of the money.  The news of the lottery win quickly spread amongst the locals in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 11 and Het was rapidly seen handing out money to all the well wishers until the authorities and a close neighbour stepped in to stop him giving away all of his new found wealth.  The quick thinking of the authorities and neighbour meant that Het was able to safely deposit the remainder of the lottery fortune around 5 billion dong (£172,250) into a local bank.

‘Luckily’ local people are keen to help him to spend lottery cash!

The reason for so much attention by local people on Het’s big lottery win is because the average annual income per person is only £655.  Sadly many of the people who had asked for handouts from Het claiming to be relatives are believed to be complete strangers and were guilty of taking advantage of the elderly man’s kindness.  Nguyen Van Het is quoted in an article in the Daily Mail as admitting that he will ‘have a lot of trouble spending the money before he dies’. It seems that the local ‘well wishers’ in Ho Chi Minh City were all maybe trying to save him from this trouble!