A retired Blacktown man is reaching for his suitcase and passport after making the shocking realisation he won division one in the weekend’s Saturday Lotto draw.
The Western Sydney man held one of the five division one winning entries across Australia in Saturday Lotto draw 3997 on 9 November 2019. Each entry won a division one prize of $797,869.82.
Speaking to a NSW Lotteries official this morning, the man recounted how he realised he was a division one winner.
“I discovered this yesterday morning. As a routine, I check my tickets over breakfast on a Sunday morning,” he shared.
“I checked my ticket using the app and saw all the numbers there, and thought ‘that’s it!’. I’ve kept the ticket in a safe place since then.
“It’s just money, mate, but it’s a nice bit of money,” he laughed.
“I’ve been playing for more than a year now and winning lots of little prizes along the way - $10, $20 – but this one is the big one!”
Having spent the past 24 hours contemplating his prize, the winner vowed he would use his division one win wisely.
“It helps a lot,” he said.
“I will use it to pay off the mortgage and also invest some for the future.
“We also like to travel a bit, so this will certainly help us carry on with that.
“I’m sure we’ll head out to dinner tonight to celebrate too.”
The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased his winning entry at BK Newswest, Shop 3059 Westpoint, 17 Patrick Street, Blacktown.
BK Newswest manager Ghassan Eid said he was jubilant to hear one of his customers had a winning weekend.
“It’s been a while since we last sold a division one winning ticket at this store, more than three or four years. It was high time we had another win!” he said.
“We were really excited to see we had sold the winning ticket for Saturday night’s draw. We’ve been sure to let all our customers know when they come in to check their tickets.
“It’s great this winner knows they’ve won as they were unregistered and sometimes people take a while to discover the news.”
In the 12 months to 30 June 2019, Monday & Wednesday Lotto and Saturday Lotto created 193 millionaires across Australia.
The winning numbers in Saturday Lotto draw 3997 on Saturday 9 November 2019 were 28, 1, 25, 36, 27 and 10, while the supplementary numbers were 14 and 18.
Across Australia, there were five division one entries in Saturday Lotto draw 3997 – three from New South Wales and one each from Queensland and Victoria.
The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 326 so far this calendar year, including 95 won by NSW Lotteries customers.
In the 12 months to 30 June 2019, there were 244 division one winning Saturday Lotto entries across the Lott’s jurisdictions, which collectively won more than $286.6 million.
