A Laotian immigrant living in Portland has just won a lottery jackpot worth billions of dollars, the biggest ever in Oregon. Forty-six-year-old Cheng Saephan and his wife, Duanpen, will split the prize, which will be paid out over 30 years. He said he would give half of the winnings to a friend, who helped him buy the tickets. The couple are members of the Iu Mien ethnic group, which fled to Thailand from Vietnam after the war and later settled in the United States.

Lao officials are rigging the country’s national lottery, sources in the communist nation tell RFA’s Lao Service. Drawings have been marred by numbers that vanish from purchased tickets and by other irregularities. On Oct. 14, for example, the number 509 appeared only as a five on purchased tickets during the day of the drawing. It changed to a nine only minutes before the drawing, a source told RFA.

Laos’ state lottery enterprise has been issuing lotteries four times a week with an additional scratch lottery that requires buyers to scratch off the ticket to reveal a number. This despite public complaints that the number of lotteries is too high, encouraging people to become addicted to gambling. Lao lawmaker Bounchom Boutsavanh, who chairs the parliamentary finance committee, said government investment was needed to address illegal lotteries. He added that private business interests should not be responsible for the lottery, because their drawings cannot be trusted.