KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Just hours af­ter sell­ing the win­ning tick­et in Wednes­day night’s $19 mil­lion Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) Lot­to Plus draw, the Lucky Chance Lot­to Booth is al­ready see­ing in­creased busi­ness.

While most peo­ple do not know who the new mul­ti-mil­lion­aire is, booth op­er­a­tor Seli­na Ram­per­sad said she was hap­py to con­tribute to some­one’s life-chang­ing win. Ram­per­sad said it was the first time she or the busi­ness sold a win­ning Lot­to Plus tick­et.

“It is a good feel­ing to know you put that luck there for them. Maybe it is their own luck, but it is a good feel­ing,” Ram­per­sad said.

It was, how­ev­er, dif­fi­cult for her to get a break to talk to Guardian Me­dia.

When word spread that the NL­CB out­let at Ar­cade Mall, San Fer­nan­do, had dis­pensed the win­ning tick­et, many hope­ful fu­ture jack­pot win­ners lined up to take a chance in Sat­ur­day’s $2 mil­lion draw.

Ram­per­sad’s boss called her around 11 am, ex­cit­ed that his booth sold the win­ning tick­et.

De­spite not know­ing the win­ner, she felt hap­py for the per­son and the busi­ness, be­liev­ing the win would en­cour­age more cus­tomers to pa­tro­n­ise the booth.

“We hope to sell more Cash­pot and Lot­to as well, and we hope for more cus­tomers, and we saw that this morn­ing. We hope things get bet­ter,” she said.

Ram­per­sad added some peo­ple play their own num­bers, but most pur­chase Quick Picks.

With busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty not yet back to pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els around San Fer­nan­do, mall man­ag­er Akiel Mo­hammed thanked the win­ner for pa­tro­n­is­ing a busi­ness at the lo­ca­tion.

“It will en­cour­age more peo­ple to come to the ar­cade. It will up­lift busi­ness­es here and the Lot­to guy, as well. He will al­so get more up­lift­ment to sell more tick­ets, to come to work to serve the peo­ple, give them Lot­to num­bers, Cash Pot and things like that,” Mo­hammed said.

He said while the win­ner may not risk re­veal­ing his or her iden­ti­ty, he hoped they would re­turn to the mall to pa­tro­n­ise the stores there.

Mo­hammed said it was the first time he had seen the booth sell a win­ning Lot­to tick­et in ten to 15 years it had op­er­at­ed there.