Mystery lottery winner donates $2.8m winning ticket.

Mystery lottery winner donates $2.8m winning ticket

26.07.2004 3.28 pm

TOKYO - Officials in western Japan are marvelling at the generosity of a mystery philanthropist who donated a US$1.8 million (NZ$2.8m) lottery ticket to help victims of recent torrential rainstorms.

In an extremely rare display of charity, a winning lottery ticket good for a 200 million yen grand prize was mailed to the governor of Fukui prefecture on Friday with a note saying it was intended as a donation for rain victims.

"I am sending a lottery ticket that is blessed with luck hoping that it will be of some help to the people who had the misfortune of suffering damages," the letter said.

Hiroko Imatomi, a Fukui prefecture official who first spotted the mail, said the note convinced her the sender was sincere.

"It was a wonderful letter ... It was definitely not intended as a hoax or a joke," she said.

"It must be from a rare type of person who has a big heart and hopes it will help people who suffered a lot," Imatomi said.

The sender used a false name and local authorities have no way to find out who sent the winning ticket, which has been confirmed as being authentic, she said.

Torrential downpours pounded Fukui prefecture on July 17-18, killing three people, injuring 17 and destroying or damaging more than 200 homes.

- REUTERS

We need to see more of these people in the world, it made my day to hear that such people still exist in our current society

That's amazing, these type of people still exist in this modern world?
There is no way of finding the person who donated this money? I would have at least like to see a picture and a name of the donator.

.......this is either a crazy person or is crazily generous. Neither way the person is crazy. Why wound a person play lottory is he/she ain't greedy?

Maybe he/she intended to play lottery for the money, but had a big enough heart and moral conscience to sacrifice what he/she won and instead, send it to people who need it more than he/she does.

If that's "crazy", then I'd rather commend and admire these "crazy" people of our materialistic world.

that is so awesome how this dude donated all that dough to those who need it. i dont think i can give that much money. im too greedy. hehehe.

maybe this guy beat some1 up and took the money and with that money, he bought the winning ticket. and then his conscience told him that it was wrong to keep that money.
stupid far fetched idea.

Aw, that's so sweet... worth way more than just 2.8mil ! We do need more people like her, or him...