Home lottery non-winner gets a $100,000 consolation prize
A Murray Bridge woman has received a gift from billionaire Adrian Portelli after having a major prize from LMCT Plus taken away.
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A Murray Bridge woman who was told she had won a $3.5 million house, then had it taken away again, has received a consolation prize from the billionaire who ran the giveaway.
Local resident Donna was named the winner of a home from TV series The Block a week and a half ago, in a draw live-streamed around the nation; but like all South Australians, she had been ineligible to win.
Lottery organisers LMCT Plus, owned by billionaire Adrian Portelli, had made a mistake.
Mr Portelli subsequently contacted Donna to tell her she could not have the house after all.
But on Tuesday, he phoned again with better news: he would personally gift her $100,000.
“It’s not a house, but … it’s the least we can do,” he said in a video of the phone call posted to social media, which was edited to cut out parts of the conversation.
According to the video, the local woman expressed her gratitude, and defended Mr Portelli.
“I understand, I didn’t read the terms and conditions ... that’s life,” she said.
“It’s discrimination by postcode, isn’t it?
“Why is it illegal for me to spend my money in another state of Australia?”
In the days after the draw, Mr Portelli released a series of videos criticising SA’s government – which is suing him for allegedly running an unlawful lottery – and complaining about being portrayed as the bad guy.
“Instead of praising me … they’ve attacked me and thrown me under the bus,” he said.
He argued that LMCT Plus had done everything possible to make it clear that South Australians were ineligible to win major prizes, including:
- Doing no paid social media marketing in SA
- Emailing all SA members to let them know they were not eligible
- Putting the exclusion in the competition’s terms and conditions
“What do you want me to do?” he asked in a video last Thursday night.
“If someone chooses not to read, how is that my fault?”
It was not illegal for South Australians to purchase LMCT Plus packages in order to access discounts from participating businesses, he said.
He claimed that he would have been perfectly willing to give away prizes to South Australians and pay the appropriate fines for breaking lottery laws, but was unable to do so.
LMCT Plus reportedly has more than 300,000 members, of whom about three per cent – according to Mr Portelli – are in South Australia.
If those 9000 people each had an entry-level membership, they would collectively contribute about $2.1 million per year to LMCT Plus in return for discounts and the chance to win a share of $365,000 per year.
Murray Bridge News has attempted to contact the prize winner, Donna, directly.
