Masked Israeli couple finally claim €14.6m lottery prize

A COUPLE who won Israel’s biggest lottery prize came forward wearing masks to hide their identities and claimed the €14.6 million payout, saying they had no idea they had been holding the lucky ticket for nearly four months.

The couple appeared at a news conference and told reporters the winning ticket was languishing near the bottom of a pile of papers and old lottery forms at their home. They noticed it this week and double-checked the numbers, discovering it was a winner.

Israel often conceals the identities of lottery winners to protect their privacy.

The couple wore red masks with the lottery agency’s logo at the news conference. The woman also wore a wide-brimmed black sun hat.

“This win is thanks to my wife who pushed me to go check the tickets because otherwise I wouldn’t have found it,” the man said.

After determining they had a winning ticket, the couple made a late-night visit to a store to see how large the prize would be.

The husband said a silence fell over the room as they began counting the number of zeros in the winning payout with the clerk.

“How much did we win, for God’s sake?” he said he recalled thinking.

“Everyone there was pretty shocked.”

The pair said they had no idea what to do with their new-found fortune.

The prize is subject to a 25% tax in Israel, the lottery agency said.

Meanwhile, those named John and Margaret have proved the luckiest British Lottery players, according to records released by the National Lottery yesterday.

The top 10 men’s names among winners who have banked prizes of more than £50,000 are John, David, Michael, Peter, Robert, James, Paul, William and Stephen.

The luckiest women are named Margaret, Susan, Patricia, Mary, Christine, Elizabeth, Jean, Janet, Linda and Karen.

The National Lottery released the names ahead of todays £17m draw, the fifth Lotto Triple Rollover in its 15-year history.

Mark Gardiner and Paul Maddison remain the biggest Lotto jackpot winners after banking £22,590,829 in June 1996, while Iris Jeffery from Belfast is the nation’s biggest single Lotto winner after hitting the £20,100,472 jackpot in July 2004.