Wreckage from the plane
Gambling outlets in Malaysia have suspended selling lottery number combinations that are linked to the down Malaysian Air Flight 17.
According to the operator Magnum and Berjaya Sports Toto Bhd (BST), the combinations 1717 and 777 became hugely popular after the plane was downed.
Reportedly, bettors queued up at gambling outlets run by BST to buy such numbers after the flight crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. That resulted in certain combinations being sold out, Magnum said in an e-mailed statement in response to questions.
It is usual for betters in Malaysia and Singapore to place four-digit bets in lotteries known as Toto and 4D. And, it is not uncommon for people to use registration numbers of vehicles involved in accidents. Prize winnings can be as much as millions of ringgit (hundreds of thousands of pounds), depending on how much was put down for the bet.
“There are so many number 7s in this crash and I wanted to try my luck,” Lee Meng Yew, a 45-year-old mechanic, said as he left a Berjaya Sports Toto gambling outlet in Kuala Lumpur. “The number combinations for 777 and 17 are not available.”
Flight 17 has attracted attention among Malaysian punters because of the prevalence of the number 7. The Boeing 777 jet was manufactured in July 1997 and had 17 years of service before it crashed July 17 en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, according to data provided by Malaysian Air.
Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, was downed on July 17 over Ukraine. All 298 people on board were killed.
This post currently has no comments, be the first.
Leave a Comment