September 19, 2025
SINGAPORE – A housewife in Ipoh, in Malaysia’s Perak state, turned one of modern life’s greatest irritants – the spam call – into something far more gratifying: a RM6 million (S$1.83 million) lottery windfall.
It happened, as these things often do, by accident.
Her phone rang. It was an unknown number – a spam call. She let it pass.
But she did take note of the digits in her call log – 4526 and 3106. Then, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of faith in the capricious order of the universe, she wagered RM2 on them in the Da Ma Cai 1+3D lottery.
The numbers came up in the Sept 10 draw. She collected RM6,078,449.
The woman, who has wisely chosen to remain anonymous, described herself as stunned. She has already promised to donate part of her winnings to charity – proof that even cosmic coincidences can be improved upon with a dose of civic virtue.
Her win was officially confirmed by Da Ma Cai on social media.
Statistically, her win is vanishingly rare, a cosmic accident dressed up in the language of fate.
But it does happen, and in even more unexpected ways.
Mr Paul Corcoran of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, won US$2 million (S$2.6 million) in July after buying two US$1 million-winning lottery tickets, all by accident.
In May 2023, Mr Wayne Murray of New York City won US$10 million in a scratch-off game just 16 months after winning the same amount at another scratch-off game.
That meant he beat odds of one in 3.5 million – twice.