A Canberra woman is ready to say goodbye to cleaning after discovering she won one of the top prizes of $150,000 on an Instant Scratch-Its ticket.
The top prize winning $10 Jumbo Crosswords ticket was purchased at Convention Centre Newsagency, Shop 1, 33 Allara Street, Canberra City.
This afternoon an official from the Lott called the woman, who relayed the moment she discovered she won the exciting prize.
“I love Crosswords, I usually buy the $5 one once a month as a bit of a treat,” she explained.
“This time, I decided to buy a $10 Crosswords one. I just thought ‘why not, I never do it!’.
“Two days later, I decided to scratch it because I had forgotten about it.
“I originally thought I won $500, and I was with a friend, and I said to her ‘oh my god I think I have won $500! Holy cow!’, and then she checked it and she thought I won $15,000.
“And then I checked it again, and I realised I won $150,000! And I thought ‘no way’. I checked it so many times!
“My friend was blown away! I think we said ‘oh my god’ about 100 times.
“It feels very surreal!
“We had a bottle of champagne last night, and we are going to have another when the money goes into my account to celebrate.”
When asked how she planned to enjoy her prize, the winner admitted she already had a few plans.
“It takes the pressure off!” she admitted.
“I am going to put some of it towards my mortgage and I did say I am going to get a house cleaner!
“I hate cleaning!”
Convention Centre Newsagency owner Laura Xiong said she couldn’t be happier for her regular customer.
“We are thrilled! It’s fabulous news,” she said.
“The winner was so happy when she came into the store! She originally thought she only won $500!
“It was the first time I was able to share in a major prize winning moment with a customer, it was very exciting.
“I wish her all the best and hope she enjoys her prize.
“Hopefully this is the start of a winning streak for the outlet.”
In 2019, there were 199 Instant Scratch-Its top prize winners across the Lott’s jurisdictions who collectively took home more than $9.7 million in top prizes.
During this same time, Instant Scratch-Its players enjoyed more than 27.1 million wins across all prize tiers worth more than $208.8 million. This equates to more than half a million dollars won on Instant Scratch-Its every day.