Fishermen, clerks, workers, unemployed and even housewives. On October 31, 1998, when 63 billion lire were won in the Superenalotto in Peschici, in the province of Foggia, luck struck almost everyone. One prize – the equivalent of 32.5 million euros – played at the “Mille cose” kiosk in Corso Umberto I with a lottery ticket divided into 100 odds. The little-known game had been born the year before, and the win in Puglia, a city of around four thousand people, had national media resonance. Journalists and TV crews came to Peschici from all over Italy. A win, one of the highest when many did not yet know what Superenalotto is, that changed the lives of many Peschiciani.
D’Amato: «I turned my hotel into a four-star hotel»
Like Matteo D’Amato, an entrepreneur who accidentally won 630 million lire. “I had gone – he says – to the betting shop to buy a newspaper with a CD by Lucio Battisti as an insert. For a change, the owner wanted to give me a share of the property. At first I gave up because I didn’t know what the game was. Then a friend who was with me convinced me and I took the fee.” A rate that turned out to be a winner. “When I won – he continues – I invested the money in my hotel, which went from three stars to four stars. Mine was really a lucky win. I can truly say that I was kissed by luck».
Half the country won that evening in Peschici. There have been a hundred shares of the Superenalotto ticket that have been successful, but many have been bought by multiple people. “It was – says another winner – a rainy victory. If he takes the phone book and calls someone, he will see that he has won money with this voucher or that he has a relative who has won». A victory also celebrated with a plaque placed some time later on the outside wall of the commercial activity that had prepared the system that turned out to be victorious. «It was a miracle – said Fernando De Nittis, owner of the betting shop a few years ago – someone from up there gave us the numbers and guided my hand and made me enter the correct numbers. With all the money we invested in tourism activities and continued to work in the area».
Many of the winners are known, many others are not. «Some – says another resident of the Gargano center – never said that they were among the winners of that evening. Maybe not to draw too much attention. Just as there were those who invested this money wrongly and lost everything in a short time». And even today, many of these winners return to the «Thousand Things» betting shop to play Superenalotto, hoping that luck will return to kiss them and, above all, to kiss the owner Fernando so that he can choose other winning numbers.
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