Three lucky winners win $100 each in The New Paper Match & Score contest

He arrived at the SPH News Centre just seven minutes before the deadline to claim his prize.

Operations executive Vijayan Ramasamy, 46, was one of three winners last night who scored $100 each in The New Paper Match & Score contest.

The contest coincides with the Euro 2016 football tournament, which kicked off early this morning.

Mr Vijayan realised he had won only after returning from work and checking the jersey cut-outs he had collected throughout the week.

The avid TNP reader, who has been buying the paper for at least 20 years, said: "I missed quite a lot of other TNP games and competitions, so it was quite a surprise when I won."

SCORE: Operations executive Vijayan Ramasamy, retiree Eddie Koh (above) and customer service officer James Chung Weng Hong were last night’s three winners.

Another winner, Mr Eddie Koh, 67, who relies on a walking stick, did not allow his condition to get in the way of collecting the prize on behalf of his wife, Madam Shirley Khoo. Mr Koh, who lives in Pasir Ris, took two hours to get to the collection point.

"She was quite hesitant to come because it's so far (from our home). So I came instead," said the retiree.

SCORE: Operations executive Vijayan Ramasamy, retiree Eddie Koh and customer service officer James Chung Weng Hong (above) were last night’s three winners.

Earlier, customer service officer James Chung Weng Hong, 54, was the first person to redeem the prize.

Mr Chung, who has been reading TNP since it launched in 1988, said: "I feel happy that I've won. I didn't expect it at all."

HOW TO PLAY

In the Match & Score contest, readers can collect images of football jerseys in TNP from Monday to Thursday.

The jerseys will feature either a number or a country.

New printing technology allows every copy of TNP to include a different combination of jerseys.

Hold on to these jerseys and match them to the winning combinations of jerseys published in TNP from Friday to Sunday.

For example, if the winning combination on Friday is "Spain, France, 11, 23 and 7", and the jerseys you collected from Monday to Thursday include these countries and numbers, you can match them to win a prize.

Yesterday was the first day the winning combinations were published.

There is a daily jackpot prize of $1,000. If there is no winner, or the prize goes unclaimed, the amount will snowball to the next day.

As there were no jackpot prize winners yesterday, today's jackpot prize will be $2,000. There are also secondary prizes of $200 and $100.

Up to $31,000 can be won in the contest until July 10.

Every week, the colour background of the jerseys will change - these jerseys will be valid only for that week.

Winners must collect their prizes at the SPH News Centre, at Toa Payoh North, from 8pm to 9pm on the same day.

More details here.