France could be dubbed as the land of the luck – a Frenchman from Brittany has come forth to claim his €17 million 

 winnings, which is just over R372 million in South Africa. He discovered that he had won the €17 million windfall on the 20th of March 2020, however, he could not claim his prize due to lockdown restrictions.

The Frenchman kept his lucky winning ticket safe in his phone cover for two months until lockdown restrictions were eased and he could claim his prize from the lottery operator La Française des Jeux (FDJ). According to the FDJ, “the ticket was in excellent condition, folded in half. Our winner was very careful. He wrapped it in a small white paper to protect it well.” The anonymous winner has already bought a car with his winnings and intends on making his health a priority following his big win. “I'm going to take care of myself, get my health back because I've always worked a lot”, said the winner.

On the 15th of May, one week before the €17 million winner came forth to claim his prize, a second lucky Frenchman struck it big in the Euro Millions lottery. The winner bagged a massive €72 million in the Euro Millions draw, which is over R1,3 Billion in South Africa. This was the highest jackpot to be seen on the draw since February. The winner has not yet claimed their prize, their winning numbers were as follows: 11 - 23 - 32 - 34 - 39 with stars 1 and 6.

France has now had 106 EuroMillions jackpot winners since 2004, which is one of the highest amounts for EuroMillions winners in the last 16 years. The United Kingdom and Spain are amongst the list of countries with the most EuroMillions winners to date.

You don’t need to be in France to make all your dreams come true.

Simply, place your bets on LottoStar’s 

 draw, every Tuesday and Friday, and you could win a payout of up to R225 million.

Two Frenchman strike it big in the EuroMillions draw

 we have been changing the lives of deserving students one bursary at a time. This year, we are giving 

, and this past Friday we awarded our second winner, grade 12 student Erica Crook. Here is her story.

The request was sent in by a colleague of Erica’s mother at EuroLabs Woodmead, Claire Brink, who feels that the family deserves a break after a tough decade and that Erica, as an exemplary student, really deserves to get a further education.


A matric student at Johari Christian Academy in Benoni, Erica has an aggregate of 96% even though she has had to help bring in money for the family by working weekends and holidays at a coffee shop called Thyme and Thyme Again. Her mother, Lindy Crook, and three other sisters also work here.

Lindy and her 4 daughters had to leave Cape Town with just the clothes on their back to start over in Johannesburg, and have been struggling to put food on the table ever since, the girls needing to help out on weekends and holidays to bring in some money for the family. Even though Erica has amazing potential and was provisionally accepted into 

, there was no way they would have been able to afford for her to go to university without some outside help, which is where we came in.



 called Claire at EuroLab and asked her to give Lindy the day off. They then called Susan, owner of Thyme and Thyme Again, to ask her to get Lindy to help out for the day by pretending that important people were going to be visiting regarding project development in the area. Lindy had to get permission from Claire to get the day off work to help out at Thyme and Thyme Again, but obviously, it was already secretly arranged.

Greg & Lucky from the 947 team along with LottoStar CEO Tasoulla Hadjigeorgiou and Maria Pavli from the LottoStar team headed to Benoni to give the good news.

947 set up their digital producer to sit at a table setting up cameras and audio equipment while pretending to be a photographer visiting various coffee shops for Coffee Day. Greg and Lucky had the job of pretending to be profiling Thyme and Thyme Again as a Hidden Gem. 947 had arranged for Susan to make sure Erica waited on the two and that Lindy was manager of the day. This gave Greg and Lucky time to ask Erica, a huge fan of the radio jocks, questions such as whether she was on school holidays, what she wanted to study and so on.

Drinks and food were ordered during this time, and when the bill came the team pretended there was an issue with the bill and they asked for the manager, which was Erica’s mom that day.

When she arrived at the table, they had her and Erica sit down to begin giving them the news, revealing that this was all staged and that the real reason they were there was to give Erica a LottoStar bursary to the value of R250 000. 947’s Digital Producer had been recording parts of the conversation.

It was a very emotional moment when mother and daughter discovered that Erica had won R250,000, tears flowing freely all around. A beautiful moment for a deserving young lady who has worked hard her whole life and still managed to make a success of her school career. Watch a video of the big moment, courtesy of 

There are 2 bursary winners left to be selected, so keep your fingers crossed if you've entered, you may just be our next winner!

Blogs by Kimeshnie Pillay

Two Frenchman strike it big in the EuroMillions draw

Deserving Matric Student wins LottoStar Bursary