Three months after buying the winning lottery ticket to a £13 million fortune, an Israeli couple agreed to take part in the prize-giving ceremony in front of television cameras and newspaper reporters. But they came wearing big red cardboard masks.
Disguises are often used by lottery winners in Israel to keep their true identities secret. This latest couple who won the biggest jackpot in Israel also used electronically disguised voices to answer reporters' questions.
The couple told how the winning ticket was among more than a dozen other tickets in a pile of papers that went unchecked for over three months. The husband said the wife was nagging him to tidy up, so when he went through the pile of tickets, he discovered the last one had the winning numbers for the country's largest lottery jackpot.
"The ticket was just lying there, we just did not check, a pile of tickets accumulated, so this winning is thanks to my wife who pushed me to go check the tickets because otherwise I wouldn't have,"
said the husband.
When asked what they will spend the fortune on, the couple said they have not decided yet. Because of the masks they wore to hide their identities they will be avoiding any requests for financial assistance.
