‘Beautiful prize’: Oregon man with cancer wins $1.3bn lottery jackpot
It was about eight years after a cancer diagnosis when Cheng “Charlie” Saephan, his wife and their friends bought a batch of lottery tickets at a northeast Oregon convenience store in early April.
They ended up winning the eighthlargest jackpot in US lottery history, officials revealed on Monday, when Saephan appeared at a news conference and wondered how much time he had left to enjoy the windfall he is splitting with two of his loved ones.
“How am I going to have time to spend all of this money?” Saephan said at Oregon’s state lottery headquarters of the $1.3bn Powerball jackpot that he had a hand in claiming. “How long will I live?”
Pledging to explore setting at least some of his fortune aside toward finding a “good doctor” for himself, the 46year-old father of two also expressed relief that “I will be able to provide for my family and my health.”
Saephan’s comments on Monday to the public filled in the backstory for an unusually large lottery jackpot win.
He, his 37-year-old wife, Duanpen, and their friend Laiza Chao, 55, together put up $200 to buy a batch of Powerball tickets for a billionaire-creating draw on 7 April.
One of their tickets – from Portland’s Plaid Pantry convenience store – overcame staggering 1 in 292.2m odds and matched the winning numbers: 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9. It made prophesy of a photo that Chao sent of the tickets to Saephan after buying them along with a text joking: “We’re billionaires.”
As most lottery jackpot winners do, the victorious group opted for a single lump sum, which amounted to $422m after taxes.
It undoubtedly stands as one of the most remarkable life episodes for Saephan, who was born in Laos, moved to Thailand in 1987 and then immigrated to the US in 1994. The Associated Press said that Saephan at Monday’s news conference wore a sash identifying himself as Iu Mein, a south-east Asian ethnic group with roots in south
ern China.
Many Iu Mein were subsistence farmers who aided the American military during the Vietnam war, later fled to Thailand to avoid retribution and eventually resettled in the US. Saephan was among tens of thousands of Iu Mien who started a new life along the west coast, including in and around Portland.
He eventually gained work as a machinist working on parts for planes, according to OregonLive.com.
Before securing and coming forward to collect his prize, Saephan said he wrote out what he hoped would be winning numbers on a slip of paper, slept with it under his pillow and prayed for good luck.
“I need some help,” Saephan, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, recalled praying. “I don’t want to die yet unless I have done something for my family.”
Oregon law in most cases prevents lottery winners from remaining anonymous, setting the stage for Saephan to appear at Monday’s fanfare-laden press briefing in the city of Salem. There, as OregonLive.com reported, he recounted how he called Chao shortly after their win and – upon learning she was headed to her job – broke the news by telling her: “You don’t have to work now.”
He outlined his plans to buy a house. And a man identifying himself as Saephan’s pastor discussed how
Cheng had agreed to send the preacher on missionary trips to Thailand, Laos and possibly China.
“I want to thank God,” Saephan said on Monday, “for giving me this beautiful prize.”