The 2025 Chilean Netflix documentary Millonario tells the story of perhaps the country's unluckiest man, or the failed attempts of an ambitious con man, depending on how you perceive the complex situation. The protagonist is Javier Zapata, a Chilean who won the country's largest lottery, 2.4 billion pesos, but was never able to collect the prize, as authorities claimed his ticket was counterfeit. Although its presentation is a bit chaotic and sometimes strays from the main topic, Millonario is still an intriguing film and can be highly entertaining for fans of non-fiction cinema.
Javier Zapata, a farmer living in a town near Los Angeles in central Chile, led a very normal life until one fateful day in March 2018. Although Javier was never extroverted and therefore not very popular in his neighborhood, he had a good number of close friends and acquaintances who regularly stayed with him or simply said hello when they met. Most neighbors remember seeing Javier participating in farm chores, whether feeding the cattle or cleaning the stables, and are convinced he was an honest, hard-working gentleman.
Directors: Felipe Isla, José Isla
Writers: José Isla, Felipe Isla, Susana Quiroz-Saavedra
Stars: Javier Zapata, Blanca Vásquez, Mariela Zapata
In his spare time, Javier also worked as a taxi driver, probably in Los Angeles, and did his best to ensure his wife, Blanca, and young daughter, Mariela, had a secure and comfortable life. But like a significant portion of the Chilean population, Javier had a habit of pushing his luck, as he used to gamble at racetracks and buy lottery tickets, hoping that the luck he'd had in life up until then—finding the love of his life and having a fairly decent livelihood—would change his fortune overnight. Millonario addresses the immense popularity of gambling in Chile, with Nicolás Inostroza, a journalist with expertise on the subject, explaining how the custom of buying lottery tickets and betting on sporting events such as table football and horse racing has always been a cultural phenomenon in the country. Historically, the common people of Chile had always been oppressed and exploited, and gambling provided them with a sense of relief, as well as hope that their lives could change drastically if luck favored them.
Even when there was nothing to bet on, some people in Chile were recorded betting on watermelon seeds, wagering money on whether they would turn up black or white. Therefore, after the country's formation, it was an obvious decision for the Chilean government and private companies to operate various lottery programs for citizens, and these remain a very popular form of gambling, as well as a major source of income, to this day. Activities such as betting at racetracks have also become a form of entertainment, as they include other associated activities, such as eating and drinking, which also generate greater income.
Javier Zapata also had the habit of buying lottery tickets and betting on horse races, hoping to win a big prize one day. He got a big surprise when he visited his favorite lottery in Los Angeles one particular day in late March 2018. Upon approaching the store, Javier asked for the code on his Kino lottery ticket to be checked. When the cashier, Ariela, made the request, he couldn't believe his eyes. The code exactly matched the numbers announced as the winners of the previous week's drawing, which had the jackpot of approximately 2.4 billion pesos, equivalent to about $2.4 million in today's dollars. This meant Javier had won Chile's largest lottery prize, enough money to change everything in his life. He recalls, ecstatic, calling Clara to tell her the news, only for her to think he was joking and hang up. However, there was still a small problem: Javier didn't have the original ticket with him; instead, he had written the code number on a piece of paper, as usual, but this clearly wasn't enough to claim the grand prize.
When Clara Zapata and her daughter, Mariela, returned home that day, they found everything in disarray and feared a burglar had broken in. But they soon realized it was Javier's doing, having been frantically searching for the lottery ticket he had bought a few weeks earlier but finding no trace of it. Clara claims her husband does suffer from extreme carelessness, especially with documents and other important items, and the family even presents a theory about what must have happened. The day Javier bought the ticket at Ariela's Kino lottery in Los Angeles, he must have carefully put it in his pocket and then completely forgotten about it upon returning home.
Mariela, who was about eight or nine years old at the time, believes Javier went up to clean the chimney, as he occasionally does, when soot must have gotten into his eyes. Blinded by the soot and the resulting pain, Javier must have reached for his handkerchief in his pocket and, without realizing it, grabbed the lottery ticket as well. As he wiped his face with the cloth, the ticket must have fallen down the chimney, and when Clara took out the trash, she must have inadvertently carried it out of the house. The family had a habit of keeping trash bags in the garden outside and, unfortunately, they were vulnerable to vicious attacks from their dogs. So, by the time Javier considered this possibility and checked the trash bags in the garden, everything was a mess.
But, by pure chance, Javier finally found the lottery ticket stuck to an old notebook while he was carefully sorting through the trash. Although the ticket was in very poor condition, with some numbers erased and the paper wrinkled, he wasted no time going to the Lotería office in the nearby city of Concepción to claim the grand prize. According to Kino lottery rules, any prize had to be claimed within 60 days of the drawing, and half of that timeframe had already passed. Javier handed in his ticket and eagerly awaited the huge sum of money. In just a couple of days, he ended up betting significantly more on horse racing and even moved to a new house, promising to pay the seller the money as soon as he received his prize.
But his plans were complicated when authorities from the Lotería, the company that managed the Kino lottery, notified Javier that the authenticity of his ticket could not be verified. Since they had initially requested time for verification, a team of experts was brought in to review the paper, but their rudimentary method of examining the ticket under a microscope did not convince Javier. Therefore, he invested his own farm money to hire a forensic expert to prove the authenticity of his ticket. While the expert found some of the many crucial elements of the ticket, such as the barcode and the number, the exact date of the draw and the date of its printing, which are always printed on the ticket, could not be found. This was due to the poor condition of the paper, as some parts had simply come loose or become illegible.
As Javier and the hired expert conducted another thorough inspection of the lawn, they claimed to have found a small piece of paper stuck to the side of a toothpaste tube, which, crucially, contained the exact numbers they were looking for. The expert notes that the back of the paper had a bluish tint, exactly the same as a Kino lottery ticket, which was enough evidence for the men to affirm that this was, indeed, the missing piece. They soon handed this new evidence over to the authorities, but they simply refused to take the matter seriously, especially since their rules clearly stated that the original lottery ticket must be presented in good condition in order to claim any prize.
By then, Javier had already become the target of ridicule and humiliation on television and the internet, as many considered him a liar and a con man who tried too hard to win. To top it all off, another man, José Rivera, suddenly walked into a Kino lottery store and claimed to be the original winner of the jackpot, even showing a crumpled ticket to prove it. Naturally, José was asked why he had gone to claim his prize so late, as it had been 58 days since the drawing, and he told a story even stranger than Javier's efforts to prove the authenticity of his ticket. José stated that, being single and living with his dogs, he had a habit of buying lottery tickets and then forgetting about them, as he easily lost them.
During a visit to the vet the day before claiming, one of her dogs bit her hand, prompting her to search her purse for a bandage, as she always carried several. It was then that she found the crumpled bill and was thrilled to discover that number had been announced as the big winner. So, she rushed to the store as quickly as possible to claim and get her hands on the money, only for authorities to suspect her bill was also counterfeit. The media loved this bizarre story and often pitted José and Javier against each other, eventually even trying to convince them to accept each other's claims and split the money between them, which would still be enough to turn their lives around.
However, the company that managed the Kino lottery, Lotería, ultimately disappointed both men by claiming that the tickets they had issued were counterfeit, falsified to resemble the winning ticket. Initially, they filed a fraud complaint with the police, which was more of a public statement claiming that both men, who claimed to be winners, were lying. Some sectors of society, including Javier Zapata and his family, began to claim that it was actually the Lotería that was trying to avoid paying the sum of 2.4 billion pesos, which is why they made these false accusations that the ticket was counterfeit.
While the circumstances of the fiasco made it seem plausible that the company was intentionally trying to deny the winners their prize, cases of fraud and counterfeiting of lottery tickets and other forms of gambling were quite common in Chile. So many people attempted to cheat the system that Lotería even created an internal team of forensic experts to periodically examine the tickets submitted by supposed lottery winners. Some of Javier's friends also mention his habit of lying convincingly on Millionaire, which made the evaluation even more difficult. It's quite possible that Javier forged the ticket and intentionally presented it in very poor and illegible condition to pass it off as the real thing.
The Lottery also didn't engage in any suspicious behavior, notably paying an unusually high amount to the team of external experts it hired on this occasion to prove Javier's ticket was counterfeit. The team wasn't even very good or competent, according to general opinion. There were also previous cases, such as when a child accidentally tore a winning lottery ticket and used it for their school project, and the company decided to give the prize money to the supposed winners even though their ticket wasn't in the best condition. Therefore, people began to wonder why the company was being so unnecessarily harsh with Javier and whether its accusations of forgery were vindictive.
Finally, Javier Zapata filed a lawsuit for more than 3.5 billion pesos against the Lotería, claiming that the biased and prejudiced ruling against him had not only deprived him of the money legally owed to him but had also greatly damaged his reputation. This lawsuit suggested that the Lotería was trying to avoid paying out the money, and that the jackpot would be officially reported as unclaimed, so that the entire amount would go to the University of Concepción. During all this time, Javier had also spent a lot of money trying to prove his honesty and authenticity.
The man even suffered a terrible hand injury, forcing the farm and dairy to temporarily close, causing severe financial hardship for the family. The last update on the court case came in July 2024, when Javier was summoned to hear the judge's ruling. Unfortunately for him and his family, the judge concluded that there was no definitive evidence to prove that the ticket he presented was genuine. That same month, Javier appealed the ruling and decided to continue his fight against what he considered systemic oppression. To date, Javier Zapata has not received any money from the Lottery, which continues to claim his ticket was counterfeit.
Currently, Javier Zapata continues to live in his home near Los Angeles, where he and his wife, Blanca, have reopened their dairy business. They continue to hope that their fortunes will one day change, and their daughter, Mariela, provides them with all the support she can. Despite Javier's decision to continue fighting the lottery, which will not only cost him a lot of time but also a considerable amount of money, Blanca and Mariela promise to support him fully in all his personal and professional endeavors. Despite the setbacks, the family has undoubtedly united, as stated at the end of the Netflix series "Millonario."
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