Here’s a happy, encouraging story for a change (encouraging in that people actually do occasionally win the lottery in South Africa).

A Pretoria man who had had to pawn off his wedding rings for R500 a few weeks ago just won R1.9million in the Powerball Lottery. Talk about life changing.

The father of two took a few days to collect his winnings, concerning bookmaker Hollywoodbets that the winner had lost their ticket. After sending out messages for punters to check their tickets for the winning numbers, the man came forward.

He explained how their landlord turned off their electricity two months ago and how he had to sleep at a customers house once because he couldn’t afford transport home. But it was this night away from home that lead to the win.

…numbers revealed to him in a dream.

“In the dream he apparently overcame a tiger trying to kill him,” said Hollywoodbets betting operations manager Dermot O’Connell. He then translated the dream into the winning numbers.

Here’s hoping the lights go back on, he buys even bigger, shinier weddings rings and that his kids get through college.

If you want to send your kids to good schools in a few years time, then you should probably start playing the lottery. Tonight’s US Powerball lottery is sitting pretty at R800 million. That’s incentive enough to go BUY A TICKET OR FIVE.

[Source: IOL]