This is the story of a small Belgium village called Olmen. They are all about to have the merriest Christmas possible, thanks to the luck of the draw.
“It’s a lovely story, really,” said EuroMillions spokesperson Joke Vermoere in a recent interview with Reuters.
So, how did this massive win end up coming about in the first place? It all started with a lottery group buy.
The owners of a local Olmen store organize a EuroMillions group buy on a regular basis. This time around, 165 people were willing to chip in $15 apiece. For the first time ever, they were able to take the jackpot home. This gave them the chance to split the equivalent of $150 million in US dollars among themselves. Can you imagine how they felt at first?
“Many winning customers were in disbelief at first,” storekeeper Wim Van Broekhoven said, according to Reuters. He and his wife were absolutely stunned as the numbers came in and they learned of their great fortune. By the time it is all said and done, each of these winners is going to be walking away with €870,000 ($915,000 in American dollars). Best of all, these winnings will be taken home without any taxes being removed.
“We have had quite a few new customers since the big win,” Van Broekhoven adds. “Everyone is genuinely happy for them.” The village has a total population of 3,778, so this is quite the windfall. Some may have heard of this village already, as they are known for their willingness to continually embrace their older traditions.
The village’s carnival is a popular event, giving people the chance to immerse themselves in various medieval traditions. This story has us wondering what we would do if we managed to come into some lottery winnings. It’s the perfect time of year to have some extra spending money at your disposal. We would be buying up the whole store and then some.
If we had to guess, they are really going to look out for each other. It is not every day that you see people being genuinely happy for others’ success.