How a festive spruce led to a lottery win

A COUPLE are in for a Christmas to remember after finding a winning lottery ticket worth €105,000 while sprucing up their house for the festive season.

The pair were sifting through old lottery tickets during a preChristmas clean up when they found the winning ticket from a EuroMillions draw in October.

‘We were clearing up the house last Sunday before we put up the Christmas decorations and we took a break to check the tickets to see if there was a few bob on them,’ the unnamed husband revealed to the National Lottery.

‘When I scanned it on my phone, a message just popped up telling me that I had to contact the National Lottery. Obviously we were excited because we knew there must have been a prize on it but we never in a million years imagined it would be this much. It’s just amazing.’ The family now plan to use the money to pay a massive chunk of their mortgage after they enjoy a very special Christmas.

The ticket was purchased at a service station in Portumna, Co. Galway, and was one of the ten lucky raffle winners who won an additional €100,000 on top of the EuroMillions ‘Ireland Only Raffle’ prize on Friday October 26.

On Tuesday, another Lotto player collected the top prize of €250,000 following a win in the Lotto Plus 2 draw on Saturday.

The man, who did not want to reveal his identity, bought the ticket in a Tesco’s Supermarket in Dooradoyle in Limerick.

He said the first thing he would do was to donate an amount to a children’s charity and then he plans to buy his girlfriend, who is learning to drive, a brand new car.