Here’s last weekend’s breaking news: The Queen is still Head of the UK and Commonwealth, the US Government didn’t resign, Greece wasn’t declared bankrupt and there’s been no life on Mars for at least the last 600 million years! I must report that my local streets were completely free from snow and ice, the traffic didn’t grind to a halt or become gridlocked on the dry roads, the sky got dark after the sun set, and NOBODY won a first prize jackpot in any of the world’s richest lotteries!

So to make up here’s a couple of topical news headlines: “War Dims Hope for Peace” – “Cold Weather Linked to Temperatures” – I’ll leave you to write your own stories!

On the upside no first prize jackpot winners means more rollovers! Winning a rollover means, in reality, you get to take home, huge, massive, GIGANTIC amounts of loot just as soon as your chosen numbers match those drawn from the lottery machine. Now that’s what I call news!

The next big jackpot day is tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb, 7. A day in history that was and will be noted for several memorable moments: Feb, 7, 1891 – The Great Blizzard began; Feb, 7, 1904 – Baltimore caught fire (1500 buildings destroyed in 80 blocks), Feb, 7, 1974 – Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” opened in movie theatres and Feb, 7, 2012 will be the day that the jackpot for the Powerball lottery hits TWO-HUNDRED and FIFTY MILLION dollars, right alongside SuperEnalotto; jackpot SEVENTY-NINE MILLION, EuroMillions Lottery; jackpot SIXTY-NINE MILLION and MegaMillions Lotto; jackpot THIRTY-TWO MILLION!

Hit a jackpot by the end of Tuesday evening and one thing’s for certain, you’ll very definitely make your own news; but only if you’ve got a ticket! As always you can buy a lottery ticket for any of or all of these games, plus many more of the world’s biggest and richest lotteries from right here at WinTrillions – just follow the links and be ready to fend off the newshounds and paparazzi on Tuesday!

According to practically every single news bulletin throughout the world, The Republic of Greece, AKA, The Hellenic Republic the “cradle of western civilisation,” currently has a bit of a cash flow crisis, is little short of the readies and is struggling to pay its debts! Aren’t we all?

However, being Greek didn’t bring any financial solace either to film maker Costis Mitsotakis, who is the only Greek inhabitant of the Spanish village of Sodeto. This is the tiny village tucked away in the municipality of Alberuela de Tubo, Huesca, Spain where the entire population of 70 households, decided to pool their resources in order to buy tickets for Spain’s biggest lottery – El Gordo and then won first prize – a staggering NINE HUNDRED and TWENTY-THREE MILLION dollars – yes you did read that right $923,000,000 which meant that the minimum every household walked away with was $132,000 apiece!

All except one that is, no prizes for guessing the missed household – right first time – Costis Mitsotakis! Sadly it appears that when his neighbours were going around every house in the village persuading people to buy El Gordo lottery tickets, Mitsotakis, who lives in a barn half a mile outside Sodeto, mistakenly got overlooked.

Fortunately not all is doom and gloom for Mitsotakis, as he had been trying to sell some land without much success, It now appears that after learning of their lottery win, a neighbour called to say he would buy it and now more neighbours have put in offers on the land; however Mitsotakis doesn’t want any bad feelings in such a small village and has refused to get into a bidding war! He sounds like a very nice guy indeed!

Spain is of course noted, amongst other things, for its addiction to big money lotteries and raffles and with just over 1 day to go before the next Spanish Special Millionaire Raffle is due to be drawn, then this weekend is no exception. Up for grabs is a very tasty ONE HUNDRED and TEN MILLION dollars, which should help a little until your next payday! To be in with a chance of winning, you need a ticket and the place to buy a ticket for tomorrow’s Special Millionaire Raffle is right here at WinTrillions!

Powerball lottery player Cinnamon Reeves-Davis from New Orleans recently went into her local lottery store to buy her usual Powerball tickets, however instead of handing her a newly printed ticket straight out of the lottery machine the store assistant handed her a pre-printed ticket out of a drawer from under the counter. Well pierce my ears and call me Drafty – if that’s not a new variation of the “here’s one I prepared earlier” ploy – then I don’t know what is!

After a verbal dust-up with the assistant during which Reeves-Davis demands for a freshly printed ticket were refused, she decided to take her business elsewhere. According to lottery officials a store can sell any valid ticket no matter when it was printed — just so long as it’s not for a previous drawing; however, buyers do have the right to refuse any ticket that they don’t want.

Apparently it’s a short term problem to do with the newly beefed up Powerball draw which came into play on Jan. 15, with some players, still unaware of the Powerball revamp believing that the store is selling them the wrong tickets and subsequently refusing the sale, which then leaves printed and now unsold tickets at the counter which the store then tries to sell on.

You can play Powerball as well as many other of the world’s biggest and richest lotteries right here at WinTrillions.

Queue dramatic cliff-hanger music – location; Iowa Lottery Headquarters – background plot – less than 2 hours to spare before the claim deadline of 4 p.m. Dec. 29, 2011 was due expire, New York attorney’s acting on behalf an unnamed winners trust finally made it to the Iowa Lottery offices to stake their multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot claim with a ticket bought from a petrol station in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, for the game drawn on Dec. 29, 2010.

Fast forward to last week’s meeting with Iowa Lottery investigators – the claimants lawyers refuse to answer ANY questions about the ticket’s ownership and are given until 3 p.m. today (Friday Jan. 27, 2012) to reveal the true identity of the winner or winners or the multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot payment will be refused.

Wow – a standoff big style, just wait until Hollywood gets onto this – the streets outside Iowa Lottery headquarters emptying faster than a shot dog through a barn, people diving for cover, the two protagonists eye-ball to eye-ball, (queue “musical pocket watch music” – as played in the movie For a Few Dollars More) in readiness for the 3 p.m. shootout – who blinks first – loses!

The outcome: the New York attorney blinks first – withdraws his claim by fax and agrees to “take no further action to enforce the claim.”

The twist: in order to ensure the integrity of the lottery, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich, asks the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa Attorney General to investigate the attorney who made the original claim as it needs to know just how the law firm obtained the ticket to make sure it wasn’t stolen and that a valid player bought it and whether those involved complied with state law.

What happens to the unclaimed loot? It now goes into the pot toward future prizes! Phew – be still my beating heart!

Peace of mind: whenever you buy your lottery tickets at WinTrillions you won’t ever have to worry about missing a prize deadline, dropping a result, losing your ticket or having it stolen, as we write your name across every ticket, email you with a scanned copy, keep it safely and securely on your behalf, check your numbers and help you with the claim process when you win!