A Salisbury Heights mum has received the best belated birthday present ever after scratching a top prize of $100,000 on a $5 Crosswords Instant Scratch-Its ticket.
The winning ticket was purchased at The Grove Newsagency, Shops 28B-28C, Golden Grove Village Shopping Centre, Corner Golden Grove & Grove Way, Golden Grove.
Speaking to an official from The Lott, the thrilled winner revealed she had waited over a month to scratch the ticket she received as a birthday gift.
“My husband and kids gave me a few scratchies for my birthday, but I hadn’t got around to scratching them yet,” she explained.
“I’ve had them for about a month and then last night I was sitting at home watching TV, and there was nothing good on. So I thought I’d better scratch them and see if I had won anything.
“I scratched the first one and didn’t win anything on that, so started scratching the second one.
“I saw that I had scratched off a few words so I said to my husband ‘can you count the words for me?’.
“We only counted nine! We were still pretty happy with that, so we raced down to an outlet to claim the prize, and that’s when they told us we’d won a major prize.
“They said don’t lose that ticket! It’s got a few extra zeros on it than you think.
“So we claimed it first thing this morning! We didn’t want to waste any time.
“It’s been a pretty crap year, so it’s nice to have some good karma come our way.
“I said to my husband ‘this is the best birthday present ever!’.”
When asked how she planned to spend her bolstered birthday money, the happy winner said she was planning on using it to do a few things around her home.
“I’m still a bit shell shocked by the win, to be honest!” she laughed.
“We have been contemplating how we’ll spend it. We will probably pay off a few bills and buy some furniture for the house.
“The kids need a new bed, and we need a new lounge suite. Every time we sit on it, we’ll think about how we won!
“I’ll try and do something nice for the kids too, when we can.”
The Grove Newsagency owner Sonia Taylor said she was very excited to discover another one of her customers had scored a top prize.
“All of our customers have been so supportive of our business over the years, we’re glad we could make someone’s day!” she exclaimed.
“We’ll be celebrating the win by decorating the store and telling all of our customers about the win.
“They will be so excited for us! Customers are always asking if we’ve sold any winners lately. We can tell them that we’ve sold another one!
“We sold a division one winning entry in Oz Lotto in November, and we’ve sold three division one winning entries in the past two and a half years. It’s great to add another significant prize to this list!
“We’re just delighted to have sold another major winning ticket – we’re so lucky to be able to bring a smile to another happy customer.
“Congratulations to our winner! We are so happy for you and really appreciate your support of our local business!”
Between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020, there were 151 Instant Scratch-Its top prize winners across The Lott’s jurisdictions who collectively took home more than $11.8 million in top prizes.
During this same time, Instant Scratch-Its players enjoyed more than 29.1 million wins across all prize tiers worth more than $235.25 million. This equates to more than half a million dollars won on Instant Scratch-Its every day