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Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Europe’s biggest lottery jackpot finally has a winner.



The holder, yet to be identified, bought a 2-euro ticket in the Bar Biffi in Bagnone in central Italy, and will be able to claim the tax-free, 147 million euro ($210.6 million) jackpot in the SuperEnalotto draw, Italy’s biggest lottery.



Tonight’s drawing, broadcast live on RAI state television, showed the winning numbers to be 10-11-27-45-79-88. It was the first time since Jan. 31 that someone guessed the right combination from the 90 possible numbers in play.



Lottery fever has been on the rise in Italy, with more than 400 million euros spent on tickets in July and 300 million euros so far in August, according to Sisal SpA, the lottery company.



The biggest winner may be the Italian government, which takes in about half the revenue from ticket sales, though not everyone is excited about the lottery frenzy. Roman Catholic Church officials have denounced the game, with Bishop Domenico Sigalini saying it was “immoral” for the government to encourage it.



SuperEnalotto debuted in 1997. Its previous biggest jackpot was 100 million euros, won last year by the unidentified holder of a ticket purchased in the Sicilian city of Catania. The new jackpot will start at 38 million euros.



El Gordo



Lotteries elsewhere have paid larger jackpots than today’s draw. Powerball, a U.S. multi-state lottery, had a winning jackpot on Aug. 20 of $259.9 million. The winning ticket was bought in Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina.



Powerball winners only receive the full amount if they accept annual payouts over 29 years and also have the prize money taxed. It wasn’t immediately clear who won this week’s jackpot, said Rebecca Hargrove, president of the Tennessee Lottery and chair of the Powerball game group.



Mega Millions, a competing multi-state lottery in the U.S., had its biggest jackpot in March 2007, when two winners divided a pot that reached $390 million. In February last year, a Georgia man was the sole winner of a $227 million jackpot.



A 25-year-old Spanish woman in May appears to hold the previous European record. She won a 126 million euro, tax-free prize in the Euro Millions nine-country lottery. In March, the lottery capped its maximum jackpot at 185 million euros.



Spain’s Christmas lottery known as El Gordo, or the Fat One, is considered the world’s largest draw with a total prize pool of more than $2 billion. In that game there are thousands of winning tickets, leading to smaller individual payouts.



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