A Nambucca Heads couple has come forward to claim their $2.5 million Saturday Lotto win more than a week after the draw, revealing they completely forgot they had a ticket in the first place.
The New South Wales residents held one of the two division one winning entries in Saturday Lotto draw 4471 on Saturday 25 May 2024 and took home a total prize of $2,582,582.68.
As the ticket was unregistered, The Lott officials had no way of contacting the dynamic duo and had to wait for them to check their ticket and come forward.
“Omg I can’t believe it still!” the winning woman laughed when speaking to an official from The Lott late last week.
“We’re dumbfounded.
“It’s a funny story actually. So, my partner usually gets a ticket in-store and I get one online.
“Sometimes he’ll grab one and leave it in the car or in his back pocket. Well, what happened was, I saw on Facebook that someone had won in the area.
“I didn’t think he had a ticket for the draw, but I said to him, ‘Did you buy a sneaky ticket?’ and he laughed, and we joked about it, and he said, ‘Unfortunately not.’
“We just had some banter about it. You know, we always joke about winning or who will win first.
“I forgot all about it but then he came home yesterday, and he said, ‘Come for a drive with me, let’s go to the beach.’.
“We pull up and he says ‘This is really weird. So, turns out I’ve got a ticket that’s been sitting in the car this whole time. I completely forgot about and I’m too scared to look at it.’.
“I was in denial, I thought there was no way he would have the winning ticket.
“Then we had a look at the draw. I read out the winning numbers, and very quietly he said, ‘I have them.’.
“It was very surreal. We were both numb. We had no idea what to do for the rest of the day.
“Finally, it’s sinking in a bit. It’s awesome.
“The main thing we’ll do is use it for our house. Other than that, we haven’t thought about it too much.”
The winning entry was purchased at Nambucca Heads Newsagency, 26 Bowra Street, Nambucca Heads.
Nambucca Heads Newsagency owner Stephen Kimber said he was over the moon to have sold his second-ever division one winning ticket.
“My wife and I couldn’t be more excited for our little town of Nambucca to score such a massive win,” he shared.
“We will continue to share this excitement in our store with balloons and signage for the coming weeks.
“We wish our fortunate winner all the best and we hope they enjoy their prize!”
The winning numbers in Saturday Lotto draw 4471 on 25 May 2024 were 38, 22, 35, 8, 36 and 10 while the supplementary numbers were 11 and 23.
Across Australia, there were two division one winning entries in Saturday Lotto draw 4471 – both from New South Wales.
The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 382 so far in FY24, including 131 won by NSW Lotteries customers.
In 2023, Saturday Lotto created 176 millionaires across Australia.
During this time, there were 303 division one winning in Saturday Lotto entries across Australia that collectively won more than $436 million.
