Mystery Winner Pockets €100m Lottery Jackpot

The hunt was on yesterday to identify the winner of Italy's biggest lottery prize.

A ticket bought at a suburban tobacconist's in Sicily clinched a €100m jackpot that had been growing since April in Italy's SuperEnalotto draw.

Even before knowing the identity of the lucky punter, local people celebrated deep into the night on Thursday in the working-class Nesima district of Catania, the island's second-largest city.

Outside the shop where the ticket was sold, people broke open bottles of champagne and danced arm-in-arm. Young men hurtled through the streets on scooters, holding aloft the flag of the city's football club, and motorists sounded their horns, as if the local side had won a key match.

A possible clue to the identity of the winner came in the form of a tray of sweets delivered to the tobacconist's. An employee at the shop where they were bought said she had served them to a "young, dark-haired man wearing jeans and a denim jacket".

She added: "He had dark glasses on and was very, very happy." The owner of the shop said he had a local accent and drove away on a powerful motorbike.

The winning combination of 7-20-21-74-75-81 was staked in one of Italy's poorest cities, with a local authority on the verge of bankruptcy.

Catania's mayor, Raffaele Stancanelli, said he hoped that "as happens in other countries, like the US, the lucky winner will feel a moral duty to do something for the community".

According to the gaming information agency Agicos, Thursday's win was the sixth-highest of all time. It said the biggest jackpot ever won was in the US Mega Millions lottery last year.