When she prayed to God for money to pay her hospital bills and also meet other financial commitments, Madam Lucy Animwaah, who has been bedridden for the past nine months, certainly did not expect a pot of gold.

Apparently in an answer to her prayers, Madam Animwaah has won the ultimate prize of ?100 million in addition to ?720,000 in the DNL 5/39 Fortune Lotto, making her the first woman to win the top prize in the game of chance which was introduced a little over a year ago.

Madam Animwaah, in an interview with The Mirror, said she is a trader at the Mallam Atta Market and that this is the first time she is staking lotto. According to her, around May, last year, she fell ill and had to spend the greater part of her working capital on hospital bills but her sickness got worse and she had to undergo surgery.

She said after the operation, she could not regain enough strength to enable her to go about her normal business and she was bed-ridden for sometime. According to her, she was in bed one day when she heard the DNL 5/39 lotto advertisement on radio and decided to give it a try, although she did not believe that the big prizes that other people were reported to have won were true.

"In fact, one of my friends persuaded me to stake the DNL 5/39 lotto and see what God will do. So last week I selected five numbers from some previously drawn numbers and sent one of my children to stake them for me but he came back with the sad news that the period for staking was over," she said.

Madam Animwaah said when the numbers were drawn last week, four of what she had wanted to stake dropped as winning numbers and that encouraged her to select different numbers and try her luck again.

On Tuesday 7 May she decided to go to the head office of Simnet Ghana Limited, the operators of the game herself and staked ?12,000 of the on-line system which involves the use of special machines with entries closing later than the off-line system which involves the use of coupons.

And when the draw took place, she won with all the five permed numbers in addition to separate wins with four permed numbers of three tickets as well as three permed numbers on four other tickets, totaling ?100,720,000 in all.

Madam Animwaah, who is a middle-aged mother of three, said at a point, life became so difficult that she had to depend on friends for survival and that she is very grateful to God for the win. She said she intends to invest some of the money in her collapsed business immediately and will decide on what to do with rest later.

According to the Public Relations Officer of Simnet Ghana Limited, Mr Joseph Atta Wood, Madam Animwaah's winning tickets have been confirmed to be genuine and that her prize money will be presented to her later. He explained that Madam Animwaah's winnings did not attract the usual ?150 million top prize money because the company had reduced it to ?100 million in order to increase other prizes which some winners described as too little vis-?-vis the first prize.