For the time being, the Belgian authorities are refusing to pay out a €250,000 scratch card win to an immigrant from Algeria.
"My client is in an illegal situation, he has no papers and no bank account," the 28-year-old's lawyer, Alexander Verstraete, told the AFP news agency on Friday.
However, the authorities insisted that he identify himself.
The 28-year-old is currently trying to get proof through his family in Algeria.
The winning ticket is currently in a court in Bruges after three friends of the man tried to withdraw the money on his behalf.
The men, also from North Africa, were then taken into custody by the police overnight and were only released when their boyfriend and his lawyer turned up at the police station.
The €250,000 is the highest prize in the five-euro lottery ticket.
The young migrant had bought it at the port of Zeebrugge in a Spar supermarket.
Because the shop could not pay out his winnings in cash, he initially disappeared without cashing in his winnings.
Verstraete now said his client had received a promise from the authorities that he would not be deported before he received the money he had won.
“We will do everything we can to open an account as soon as possible.
Whether in his own name or not.” The Algerian therefore does not intend to apply for asylum in Belgium, contrary to what was previously expressed in the Belgian media (“I want to stay here, buy a house and find a wife”).
The winner, who wished to remain anonymous, had left his home country of Algeria about four months ago. He took the ship to Spain and traveled from there – mostly on foot – to Belgium.
He has been living in Belgium for a month and a half now, he told Belgian media.
But his real destination was Great Britain, which is why he constantly commuted between the Belgian capital Brussels and Zeebrugge, from where ferries sail overseas.