The biggest prize in the 2023 Singapore Pools Group 2 lottery draw — a whopping $13 million — was shared by 12 winning tickets. It is the largest amount that has been won by a single ticket since the jackpot was increased to $20 million in 2022. The winner’s identity has not yet been made public, but he or she will receive the prize in cash and can choose to take an annuity that pays out an extra $3,000 a month for life. The winning numbers are 7755, 7279, 5588 and 4444.
The winners in this year’s Singapore Literature Prize were announced at a glittering ceremony in Singapore on Tuesday night. The prize celebrates writers in four languages and this year saw five authors shortlisted for two or more categories. Clara Chow became the first writer in the program’s history to be nominated for both the English fiction and English creative nonfiction prizes.
In line with the sustainability theme, the event had a “green carpet” where celebrities including actor Donnie Yen and actresses Lana Condor and Nomzano Mbatha, as well as Australian wildlife conservationist Robert Irwin, walked. The heir to the British throne wore a 10-year-old dark green blazer by Alexander McQueen, while other presenters like Mbatha opted for an old suit and South African actress Yen wore a bright navy blue gown by Stella McCartney, who is known for her eco-friendly clothing.
British musician and UN Messenger of Peace Bono, a trustee of the Earthshot initiative, delivered a stirring speech on the need to fight climate change. He also praised the five winners of this year’s awards — which ranged from solar-powered dryers to combat food waste, to making electric car batteries cleaner.
A panel of judges that includes former NUS president Kishore Mahbubani and business tycoon Tan Sri Khoo Swee Keong awarded the prizes. Mahbubani, who mooted the prize in a Straits Times column, said that “The famous American social scientist Benedict Anderson said that nations are ‘imagined communities’ and a common imagination in history is a critical glue holding societies together. The prize is a way to honour historical books that have the power to stir the imagination of young people and to help them understand their past.”
On the arts front, violinists Dmytro Udovychenko, Anna Agafia Egholm and Angela Sin Ying Chan received the top three prizes in this year’s Singapore International Violin Competition. The prize money of over USD $110,000 includes concert engagements in the region.
The top earner for the 2024 Dota 2 tournament in Singapore was Daryl Pei Xiang Koh, also known as the player ID iceiceice, with around 1.8 million U.S. dollars in winnings. He beat runner-up Jeng Yih Wong, who went by the player ID NutZ. Neither had previously won a major Dota 2 tournament before. Dota 2 is a multiplayer video game that’s played on the Steam digital distribution platform by Valve. It was developed by DOTA2 LLC and is one of the most popular games in the world, with over 57 million registered players worldwide as of February 2024.