By Mustapha Kamara Junior
Mercury International, Sierra Leone’s leading sports-betting and lottery company, yesterday held the first draw of its bumper jackpot at its Siaka Stevens Street office in Freetown.
It comes days after the company unveiled the new lottery game for its customers.
The new 4/50 Jackpot game was officially launched by Kerry Dunkley, the company’s Lottery Manager, at the Family Kingdom Resort at Aberdeen, in the west of Freetown.
Dunkley said the lottery game was initiated based on the demand made by their customers across the country.
He said that with the 4/50 lottery, players pick 4 numbers out of 50 numbers and the selected number must match the numbers on the draw of the day to win a whopping Le 45 Million.
Before now Mercury had the 5/90 lottery game with which the player is to select five numbers out of 90 available numbers.
“It is realistic that people will win and I believe that people will win,” Dunkley said.
There will be twenty-one 5/90 draws a week which will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:00AM, 2:00PM and 8:00 PM. The draw will also be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:00AM, 2:00PM, 5:00PM and 8:00PM.
The new 4/50 draw will be held three times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:05PM.
Martin Michael, Managing Director of Mercury International said the lottery would be a “rollover” game with the jackpot starting at Le 45Million and that the amount would continue to increase until someone won it.
“If nobody wins the first draw, the money will keep going up until there is a winner. There will also be a consolation prize of Le 16,000 for two numbers matching on a ticket, and Le 360, 000 for matching three numbers on the draw,” Mr Michael said.
Michael said that the tickets would be sold for Le 2,000 and that there would be no limit of the maximum money somebody would win and no limit on the numbers of tickets a player could purchase to play the new game.
He said that in a situation where there would be more than one winner, the money would be shared equally amongst the lucky winners.
“Lottery games are exciting, fun and can change people’s lifestyles and this is what we want to bring to our valued customers,” he said.
He assured customers that there would be transparency in the entire process of the jackpot lottery games and other sports-betting games conducted by his company.
Alhaji Komba, Public Relations Officer of Mercury International, observed that the sports-betting company had positioned itself to give back to the community over the years through its charitable foundation and that the company planned to expand its corporate social responsibility program throughout the country.
He pointed out that they had helped reduce the unemployment rate in the country by providing employment for over 2,000 Sierra Leoneans since they started operation in the country in 2007.
Salamatu Sillah, a trader and a customer to the company, hoped that the new game would give them the chance to become millionaires, adding that they were happy about its introduction. Sillah called on other customers to take advantage of the new game.
(C) Politico 10/03/16
