2020 Sunday Lottery Draw Expected to Break the Bank

A new decade begins on January first, and while many are preparing to bid 2019 adieu, many more are looking ahead to the start of a new year.  On Sunday morning, Belizeans across the country wagered on 2020 as the winning jackpot or single number in the lottery draw and it’s safe to say that they won big, regardless of how many pieces they actually bought.  It’s perhaps the biggest payout that the Belize Gaming Company will have to make since it took over the Boledo and Sunday Lottery contracts from government.  Following the drawing of the winning numbers, snaking queues were seen at various shops, including in San Pedro where a long line was recorded and posted on social media.  This afternoon, Karil Wallace, spokesperson for the company, told us about the historic draw.

Karil Wallace

Karil Wallace, Public Relations, Belize Gaming Company

“Yesterday was one in a few, one in a million times that something like this has occurred, where the coming year which is 2020 is right here in about a couple days, in about two days if I am not mistaken, that had drawn in the Sunday lottery.  We know how Belizeans are, we purchase numbers that are very familiar to us or numbers that may have some kind of affiliation with something coming up, birthdays and so on.  Coincidentally, and also luckily 2020 played in the first prize for the jackpot in the Sunday lottery and quite a number of people won.  Quite a number, I mean like a lot of people won to the point where people were pretty much wondering if they would have been paid because the fact that the amount of people that may have won.  Now we know that whenever somebody wins any kind of Boledo or lottery they would go to their grocer that they purchased and they would have that finance for them.  Yesterday was not the case because of the amount of people that may have won.  We know that grocers don’t have a large scale of cash when it comes to that because we don’t want them to be robbed and so on and so forth.  So they do it for their own safety.  So that sparked a firestorm where people were trying to wonder if they would have been paid.”