UK couple scoop EuroMillions jackpot but where's September's French winner?

A British couple were the winners of last Friday's Euromillions draw picking up a cool £101 million or €115 million.

(screenshot from EuroMillions commercial)

But in France there's still a mystery surrounding an even bigger jackpot "won" almost a month ago.

That's because nobody has stepped forward to make a claim for the €162 million for five correct numbers plus the two lucky stars in the September 13 draw.

The operator of the lottery in France, La Française des Jeux (FDJ), apparently has still had no news from the claimant and will only issue a statement once the winner has stepped forward and then "only in accordance with his or her wishes."

The winning ticket was apparently bought in the northwestern département of Calvados.

Yes the very same area known for its apple brandy, which might give a clue as to why nobody has yet made a claim.

And let's face it, the amount is hardly inconsiderable.

Should the winner eventually be identified he/she or they would have the 250th largest fortune in France.

But hey, who's counting centimes here?

It's not the first time someone has been in less than a hurry to pick up an enormous lottery cheque in France.

As Le Parisien reports, right now FDJ is waiting for the winner of €8 million in the national lottery draw from August 13 to make his or her claim.

Time is running out though as FDJ has rules about how long a jackpot can remain unclaimed and the deadline is October 12 at one minute to midnight.

As for the Euromillions winner from Calvados - well the deadline for making a claim is November 12.

EuroMillions ticket - sadly not a winner

Just for the record, those numbers for the September 13 draw in case you haven't already checked were - and still are - 9, 28, 30, 32, 49 and the two lucky stars 9 and 10 (you can check them out here)

EuroMillions is a transnational lottery incorporating national operators in nine European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

French lottery winner strikes lucky - twice

Some people have all the luck.

A man from the southern French city of Montpellier has won the country's national lottery for the second time.

(screenshot from Loto commercial)

Back in 1996 he scooped the equivalent of €2.8 million (18,9 million French francs at the time) when his numbers came up.

And on Wednesday he pocketed a cheque of €3 million according to the La Française des Jeux (FDJ) the organiser of the France's national lottery, Loto.

What makes the win even more remarkable is that the 50-something has always played exactly the same numbers ever since the lottery was introduced in 1976.

"I chose the numbers randomly and wrote them down," he told the regional daily Midi Libre.

"Clearly I was born under a lucky star."

FDJ reckons the chances of one player winning twice with the same six numbers are one in 363 billion.

Lucky man!

But his double win comes at a price.

To begin with he has chosen to remain anonymous this time around as he had too many requests for money after he revealed his identity following the 1996-win.

And even though he maintains that he invested his previous winnings wisely, he also managed to spend around €1,000 on tickets before landing the jackpot for a second time.

Still it obviously paid off and winning twice isn't going to stop him from playing because, as he admits, he's addicted to the game.

Oh yes - and he doesn't want to rule out the possibility of winning for a third time.

French man who claimed Glaxo drug made him "gay sex addict" wins case

It might appear to be an April Fool, but rest assured it's genuine.

On Thursday a French court ordered the pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to pay Didier Jambart more than €117,000 in damages.

Didier Jambart (screenshot from TF1 news report)

Jambart had taken the company to court claiming that its drug, Requip, had led him to become addicted to gambling and sex, changed his personality and caused him psychological damage.

The 51-year-old father began taking the drug in 2003 to treat Parkinson's disease and a year later, after initial positive signs, his doctor increased the dosage, which was when the side-effects kicked in.

He began gambling, losing more than €70,000, stole credit cards from friends, became addicted to sex with men, cross-dressing and exposing himself on the Internet.

In his own words, Jambart was out of control and attempted suicide eight times.

It wasn't until a specialist took him off the drug in September 2005 that the link between Jambart's behaviour and the side effects of his treatment was established.

His lawyers had argued that GSK had known of the rare but potential hypersexuality and compulsive gambling in some patients as early as 2000 and certainly by 2003, but hadn't officially recognised the possible side effects or included a mention of it on the packaging until 2006.

"It's a great personal victory for all those victims of Requip," Jambart said after the court in the western French city of Nantes had handed down its ruling.

"The fight will go on for all those other people who have suffered similarly from such side effects and haven't dared to speak out."

Jambart's is far from being an isolated case in France. He and his lawyers, Gérard Marot and Antoine Béguin, say they in the past week they have been contacted by others now apparently willing to come forward.

It could get expensive for GSK. Still, the company can probably afford it.

Didier Jeambart demande 450 000 euros de dédommagement

Jackpot win for a 50-centimes bet should bring a smile to the face - shouldn't it?

It's the kind of story you read from time to time in the press, see on the telly or hear on the radio: a dead cert to make you feel good and perhaps start wondering what you would do if you won a pile of money.

Image from Wikipedia - author: Jeff Kubina from the milky way galaxy

"A woman places 50 centimes and wins €238,830 at a casino in Toulouse," runs the headline on the site of the regional French daily La Dépêche du Midi.

Surely the stuff that dreams are made of.

But take a scroll down the page and you'll see that not everybody is of the same opinion.

Because among the "congratulations" are some comments that are - to put it politely - simply mean-spirited.

There are those that accuse the paper of "running an infomercial-type story" or others expressing disgust at the amount of money the casino must have "raked in" before someone hit the jackpot.

Wouldn't you expect readers to be happy for the Maryse, the fiftysomething named in the piece who's also seen smiling in an accompanying photo receiving a "symbolic cheque" for the amount?

After all, as the hospital worker tells the paper, she only plays the slot machines once a month and never risks a great deal of money as proven by her having only bought €10-worth of 50-centimes tokens.

And her win should bring an even bigger smile to the face of those reading as she was obviously more than overjoyed when she thought she had won the smaller amount of €25,000.

That was the figure the machine had registered when Maryse hit the jackpot.

"I was already happy but when the director of the slot machines told me exactly how much I had won, I cried like a child," she told the paper.

"I thought such large sums of money were only reserved for 'serious' players."

But no, some of La Dépêche readers aren't at all happy for her, the paper or the casino it seems.

This is the age of the Net of course, in which the habit of making perhaps snide and resentful comments has become easy and almost commonplace - especially when they can be left anonymously.

Maybe they have a point when they write that the casino is getting some free publicity in a story that tells us, "The win is the biggest since it opened its doors four years ago."

And maybe they're right that by publishing the first name, a photo and giving the job of the winner, the paper has, "Provided enough information to allow other 'less fortunate souls' to come begging at her door or begin bombarding her with telephone calls."

But heck. Where does all this cynicism and apparent churlishness come from? And why do they feel the need to express their thoughts?

Why can't they just be happy for her?

Oh well you can't win them all.

But at least Maryse did.

French lorry driver wins lottery, saves company and employs his former boss

What would you do if you won the lottery? Buy a house? A new car? A boat?

Splash out on a dream holiday perhaps? Or squirrel the money away and continue life as usual?

Or would you have a good, long think about things and after you had finished "shopping", buy the company you worked for?

That's what one former lorry driver in his fifties from northwestern France did after he hit the jackpot.

Screenshot from La Française des Jeux commercial

"Alexandre", the man who prefers to "guard his anonymity" as the national daily Aujourd'hui en France - Le Parisien puts it, won €10 million in the French Loto last September.

When the road haulage company for which he worked was threatened with liquidation, he stepped in and bought it, becoming the new CEO and therefore the boss of his former boss.

Into the bargain he also saved the jobs of more than a dozen employees.

"I had the means to invest and save jobs, and it's a world I know well. In fact it has been my life," he said

"That's not something you can give up from one day to another."

His decision was not a rash one based on sentimentality.

He only took over the assets of the company as well as a portfolio of clients and a dozen lorries, and not the liabilities or debts.

"If I see we're losing too much money, then I'll quit," he warns.

But for now he wants to "develop business and create more jobs."

As well as an apparent "nose for business" he also threw in a little retail therapy for good measure, buying a couple of houses and a 4X4.

That was the extent of his spending spree though, as he has also taken on an investment advisor and continues to play the Loto "just in case".

La Française des Jeux, the operator of the Loto, told Agence France Presse that as far as it knew this was the first time a winner had bought the company for which he or she had previously worked.

Alexandre was one of two men from the same part of France who had separate wins in two different lotteries last September.

The other man, also in his fifties and a lorry driver, picked up €15 million in the pan-European lottery EuroMillions.

Once a lorry driver, always a lorry driver - albeit a wealthy one.

Kebab-selling couple scoop casino jackpot

For one French couple 13 wasn't such an unlucky number as they celebrated their wedding anniversary by scooping a €5.5 million jackpot at a casino.

But rather than let the win change their lives the pair fully intend to keep their jobs selling kebabs and chips.

On Monday afternoon Elhadi and Mahjouba decided that they would try their luck at a casino in the spa town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre in southwestern France.

The couple, both 38 years old, run a bar selling kebabs and chips and were in the town taking a break from the children and celebrating their Lily of the Valley (here in France) anniversary - marking 13 years of marriage.

As the wife said, when interviewed on the nationwide radio network RTL, they had gone along to the casino to have a drink and had "splashed out" €20 on playing a slot machine.

Luck clearly seemed to be on their side from the beginning as they had soon totted up €120 in winnings - all of it in small coins.

"We exchanged the coins for notes," she said.

"Except for the initial €20 which we traded in for 50-centime coins so that we could play another machine."

And that was when Lady Luck really struck because, even though at first they apparently thought the machine had jammed and wasn't working properly, it turned out that they had hit the jackpot and were €5.5 million richer.

Far from frittering away the money though, the couple fully intend not to let it change their lives in any way. So much so that they insist they'll keep their kebab and chip shop running.

"For us, we see the win as simply an improvement in our everyday lives, and it was just chance," said Mahjouba.

"We're not at all gamblers and it was pure luck," agreed her husband.

"We'll put some money aside for our children in case they want to study later," he added.

"Otherwise we're not really sure what we'll do, but we're certainly not going to squander it."

The winner wants it all

Just imagine for a moment that you're in a casino playing on one of those slot machines.

Next to you is a friend, also happily gambling away, and although you've been pumping money into that little devil for quite a while now, you've not actually won anything of any consequence.

So you turn round and ask your friend to hit the lever to set the thing in motion and then press the appropriate button to stop its rotation.

All the time of course it's your money that has been playing and it's in effect "your" machine.

Your friend obliges and.....KERCHING - you hit the jackpot to the tune of €2.175 million!

That's exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago to Marie-Hélène when she won at a casino in Palavas-les-Flots not far from the city of Montpellier in the south of France.

And her friend, Francis was with her the next day when the bubbly was flowing and the casino handed over a cheque for the full amount.

The local press was even there to record the event, with the smiling winner proclaiming, "He's my lucky charm, my four-leafed clover."

End of story perhaps. Except of course it isn't.

It has now been picked up by the national media because Francis would like something more than simply to be remembered as Marie-Hélène's "porte-bonheur".

He also wants a slice of the winnings - half of it reportedly - and of course he has found himself a lawyer.

"My client was playing on the machine next to the one which hit the jackpot," Luc Abratkiewicz told the national daily, Le Parisien.

"She asked him to 'play' for her and he set the machine in motion and pressed the button," he added.

"To win, a player needed to perform three separate actions* and my client carried out two of those."

As far as the casino is concerned there's only one winner.

"It's clear Marie-Hélène is the winner," said Jean-Marc Masquelier, the director of the casino.

"On the day that the jackpot was won, nobody said anything other than that - including her friend who even participated at the celebrations to hand over the cheque."

So far Marie-Hélène has refused to comment, and she certainly hasn't handed over any of the prize money.

Instead the case has been turned over to investigators from the brigade des jeux who are looking at video footage of what actually happened before, during and after the slot machine went KERCHING.

And the moral of this tale?




*the other one of course being to have provided to the money in the first place.