Prank made Jewish boss famous for a day

ANT KATZ

The above video explains the R9 billion prank that won’t be forgotten in a hurry – but coincidentally brought Shlomo Rechnitz world-wide fame

After the US’s world-record lotto draw of R1.6-bil (R27-bil) was won by three people last week, a prank by one entrant’s son served to highlight the amazing philanthropy of a Jewish Californian health care magnate, Shlomo Rechnitz, who owns 80 assisted-living facilities throughout California.

Rechnitz bought almost 18,000 lottery tickets, one for each of his employees.

A nurse who worked at one of Mr Rechnitz’ facilities in Pomona, California, was pranked by her son immediately after the draw when he texted her a photo of what looked like a winning ticket and told her she had won R9-bil.

RIGHT: David Levy, the administrator of Park Avenue Health and Wellness, interviewed by CNN before the prank was disclosed
See CNN News-clip here

After the nurse received the picture from her son, co-workers immediately began calling reporters to say one of their employees had won the jackpot. Luckily, the nurse had refrained from revealing her name in an effort to avoid an onslaught of media attention.

It turned out that her son had doctored the ticket to match the winning numbers. She wasn’t a winner after all. “It’s too embarrassing,” the woman’s daughter told the LA Times. “Everyone is congratulating us.”

Nonetheless, the story did serve to add to Rechnitz’ fame – taking his name and fame as an employer from California to the world. To make sure that he gave all of his employees throughout California an opportunity to go for the jackpot, Rechnitz even paid mini-marts to stay open in areas where there were no 24-hour convenience stores, to enable his workers a chance to buy the lotto ticket he was paying for.

Each employee received a card from a card from the boss on which Shlomo wrote: “We will provide the ticket. You provide the dream.”

Asked what spurred him to do this in the first place, Rechnitz said “In the new year, everyone wants an extra bit of hope” and he had wanted to give everyone that bit of hope.

Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz certainly is a different type of philanthropist. And the son who pranked his mom… she says she forgives him. It must be hard, though.