Lottery winner doubles his pounds 1.6m

A WEALTHY Chinese businessman who won the National Lottery jackpot twice on the same night is pounds 1.6m richer after a court ruled yesterday that he did not have to share the money with a friend who picked the winning numbers.

In a case which was said to "involve greed on a massive scale", a High Court judge ruled that the businessman could keep all the money.

Oi Wah Hui has already collected pounds 1.5m from Camelot for the winning numbers 2, 15, 18, 26, 36, and 38, which were drawn on March 14 last year.

He told the court that he paid for another ticket with the same numbers at a newsagent in Bayswater, west London, on the same day he spent pounds 177 on the lottery.

This second ticket was kept by Emile Choucair, a gambler he met at the Connoisseur Casino at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington.

Mr Choucair used to check the lottery tickets when the results were announced on television, the court heard.

Deputy judge Richard McCombe QC ruled that Mr Oi was the true owner of the ticket and that Mr Choucair was wrong when he said the two men had a lottery syndicate.

Mr Choucair claimed he told Mr Oi how to pick the winning numbers, which entitled him to claim half the winnings.

Irvine MacCabe, representing Mr Oi, said Mr Choucair had also tried to claim the jackpot with the ticket he had kept but had been refused by Camelot, which started an inquiry. The lottery winnings, another pounds 1.5m, were eventually paid into court by Camelot to await the outcome of the trial.

Jonathan Crystal, representing Mr Choucair, countered: "This case concerns greed on a massive scale." Mr Oi, 50, has a Hong Kong-based business manufacturing luggage and handbags and imports his products into London, which he visits several times a year.

"It appears that his business is a successful one and that he is a fairly wealthy man, independently of his lottery success," said the judge.

Mr Choucair, 60, is a Swedish citizen of Lebanese origin who spends much of his retirement in England.

Both men had been members of the Connoisseur for many years but did not meet until January 1998 when Mr Choucair said they "became virtually inseparable", said the judge.

But he said Mr Oi regarded Mr Choucair as a "hello friend" or a "hanger- on".

The judge said Mr Choucair had handed Mr Oi a jackpot winning ticket and two lesser wins. He kept in his pocket a ticket with a second jackpot winning line.

Mr Choucair made no attempt to tell Mr Oi of the second win and he did not realise he had another jackpot ticket until told by Camelot.

Mr Oi also won an order for Mr Choucair to pay the estimated pounds 100,000 costs of the case and will also claim pounds 155,000 interest on the jackpot sum of pounds 1,470,905 from the time he could have taken it in March last year.

Brendan Pang, a solicitor representing Mr Oi, said after the hearing: "Emile Choucair's counsel said in court that this case concerned greed on a massive scale. The court has made it as clear as daylight where that greed lies."