Some stories sound so improbable that even die-hard optimists briefly furrow their brows. Exactly such a story is currently unfolding in the small port town of Cassis on the French Mediterranean coast. There, where sailboats usually rock, tourists drink pastis, and the Calanques lie like a painting in the sun, suddenly everything revolves around millions.
More precisely: almost 49 million euros.
At the center of the event is an inconspicuous tobacco shop with the typically southern French name “La Civette du Port.” A shop like many others really — cigarettes, magazines, lottery tickets, a short chat at the counter. But within just one week, this very place developed into a kind of pilgrimage site for luck seekers.
On April 21, a Euromillions ticket was first validated there, awarding a French winner a share of more than 48 million euros. That alone is usually enough to make headlines all over France. The Euromillions jackpot is one of the most difficult lotteries in Europe after all. The odds of winning the main prize lie somewhere in astronomical realms — about as realistically as a spontaneous snowstorm in the height of summer in Marseille.
And then it happened again.
Just a few days later, the Française des Jeux reported another million-euro win from the same shop. This time it was “only” one million euros — won via the additional game “My Million,” which is automatically linked to every Euromillions entry. A couple from the region was completely taken by surprise by the windfall.
Especially curious: The winner reportedly had dreamed several times about winning the lottery beforehand. Friends had initially just laughed about it. She herself then began to play regularly. Not fanatically, more along the lines of: “Why not?” In the end, it was not her personal number combination that decided the win but the automatically generated code of the additional game.
Well. That’s how life sometimes plays out.
In Cassis, almost everyone is talking about it now. Crowds frequently form in front of the small shop. Tourists take photos of the entrance door, locals suddenly buy lottery tickets regularly even though they had not filled out a single one for years before. The place thrives on stories — tall tales, harbor gossip, summer romances. But this chapter tops everything at the moment.
The shop owner is experiencing a state of emergency. Between tobacco shelves and postcards, there has been heavy business for days. Some customers enter the shop almost reverently, as if a bit of luck might have stuck to the walls.
France loves stories like these.
Especially in times of economic uncertainty, lottery millionaires have an almost fairytale impact. Ordinary people whose everyday life changes completely within a few seconds — that touches many. Perhaps because there is a quiet hope hidden in it: That life sometimes does open surprising doors after all.
And Cassis provides the perfect scenery for this. The small coastal town is already considered a place of longing between Provence and the Mediterranean. Narrow alleys, colorful facades, cafés on the water — almost too beautiful to be true. Now the reputation as a “luck harbor” is added.
Whether the miracle of Cassis will last, of course no one knows. Statistics probably say the opposite. But statistics are of little interest to people as soon as millions are won somewhere.
The small tobacco shop at the harbor has long since achieved cult status.
Or as many French now say: the famous “bureau de tabac porte-bonheur” — the lucky tobacco shop.
By C. Hatty