I won the lottery!!!

In Taiwan we have something called the Taiwan Receipt Lottery. Every time we make a purchase either in store or online, we get a uniform invoice that looks like one of the two below. Occassionally they may look different such as the one at the bottom of the pile that is from a hotel.

The invoice number has a standard format, 2 letters and a string of 8 digit numbers. Every two months the government does a lottery and draws 5 sets of 8 digit numbers and and 2 sets of 3 digit numbers. These are the uniform invoice winning numbers or better known as the Taiwan Receipt Lottery. The Special Prize is worth USD319k/NTD10m if the numbers on your uniform invoices matches all 8 numbers. Next is the Grand Prize worth USD64k/NTD2m, and then three First Prize each worth USD6.4k/NTD20k. If you don't match all of the 8 numbers for the First Prize, you might still win a smaller amount depending on how many digits you match. The least is 3 digits which wins you USD6.40 /NTD200, and you have 5 chances of winning that.

Here are the latest lottery results issued by the government.

I always keep my invoices, and every two months I check them on an app on my phone. All you do is punch is the last three digits, and hey presto on my 38th invoice a red message flashed up and said I may have won the minimum NTD200 or even the First Prize!!!

I continued with the rest of my invoices. On the 64th invoice, a blue message flashed up that said Alert. I may have won the USD319k Special Prize! Wow! This might be my day. Upon a closer look, and this happens often with this app, it's not that I didn't match all 8 numbers, but this number isn't for the period I'm checking. And this is the worse thing about this app. It checks the winning numbers from the two previous draw and this number is for Jan and Feb, not March and April! Oh well, let's move on.

I got three more of these false alarms, two relating to the Jan and Feb period again, and one that said I might have won the First Prize. Eventually I got through my stack of 109 invoices and all I won was the first one that flashed up.

And how much did I win? Here's my winning ticket. I did win the lottery, this wasn't a clickbait!

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Check out all my travel posts here on Steemit Worldmap, and also my latest project @LadiesOfAsia where we share fun and cultural diversity across Asia Pacific.