BATTLERS WIN BIG
HOUSE AND HOLIDAY ON $1M SHOPPING LIST
UPPER Coomera couple Jontel and Mark will buy their first home and take their children on a dream holiday after winning $1 million on Keno.
AN Upper Coomera couple hope to give up weekend work, buy their first home and take their family on a trip to the US after winning a $1 million Keno jackpot.
Concreter Mark, 39, and wife Jontel, 37, a community carer, bought the winning ticket on Saturday at their local watering hole the Wattle Hotel.
It was the second milliondollar Keno ticket sold on the Gold Coast in the past four days.
The other ticket was purchased at Club Southport and had not been claimed yesterday.
Mark said they played Keno last Saturday at the Wattle Hotel during a family dinner, but didn’t check the ticket until his brother called to say someone still hadn’t claimed the jackpot.
“I got Jontel to come down to check, I was too nervous,” Mark said. “Turns out it was (the winning ticket).”
Jontel said their young daughter could not get her head around the size of the win and thought it was $1000.
“She said, ‘That’s heaps of money’,” a laughing Jontel said.
The family is already planning how to spend the windfall. “It’s unreal, it’s surreal. We’re not sure if it’s true, but it is,” Mark said. “I was looking at boats this morning but we’ll buy a house first.”
“With an inground pool,” Jontel added.
While the win meant they could finally go for an amazing holiday to America and Canada with their immediate family, they would still continue to work.
“It makes life easier, but we’ll still work. We work hard to get by,” Jontel said.
“Maybe we don’t need to work weekends (anymore) and once we’ve bought the house we won’t have to work until we’re 79 and not have to live week to week.”
Jontel said her Nan was lucky and seemed to have passed it down to her — she won $20,000 on a scratchie six years ago.
So what was the secret to their winning numbers?
The family always played numbers including their family’s ages and birthdays —1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 14, 24, 34, 35 and 39. Jontel said she stopped updating her age two years ago, sticking with 35.
Wattle Hotel manager Paul Berglund said he had never seen anyone win 10 out of 10 Keno numbers despite working in the industry for 15 years. He said he was overjoyed for the family, describing them as regulars who were “extremely lovely” and family-oriented.
According to Keno statistics, Queenslanders win $26 million on average every month playing the game in pubs and clubs around the state.
IT MAKES LIFE EASIER, BUT WE’LL STILL WORK. WE WORK HARD TO GET BY. JONTEL