A Shellharbour grandmother confessed she spent the morning rummaging through her rubbish bin searching for a million-dollar winning ticket she’d earlier thrown out, after thinking it hadn’t won a prize.
The New South Wales player held one of the four division one winning entries nationally in Saturday Lotto draw 4007, drawn Saturday 14 December 2019. Each entry took home a division one prize of $1,048,502.09.
When a NSW Lotteries official contacted the woman this morning to break the life-changing news, she revealed she’d thrown out the winning ticket.
“Oh my god,” she cried with happiness.
“Thank you so much.
“You have no idea what this means to me!
“This is going to change so many people’s lives.
“You will never believe this, I had accidently chucked the ticket in the bin. I thought there was nothing on it!
“I just went rummaging through the bin looking for it when you called!
“Oh my gosh. This is just mind blowing.”
When asked how she planned to enjoy her unexpected windfall, the loving grandmother said it would make an immeasurable difference to her life.
“I’m going to help out my children and grandchildren,” she explained proudly.
“Then after that, I don’t know.
“I’m definitely going to go on a holiday. I’ve always dreamt of going to Canada!
“I’ll be entering 2020 as a millionaire. I can’t get my head around it. It’s just amazing!”
The winning entry was purchased at Oak Flats Newsagency, 74B Central Avenue, Oak Flats.
Oak Flats Newsagency owner Victor Costabile said they were celebrating the win in store.
“It was such great news when we discovered we’d sold the division one winning entry!” he exclaimed.
“I am so excited for our store and for our customer.
“The last time we sold a division one winning entry was in 2015, when one of our customers won $22 million in Powerball!
“Congratulations to our winner! We hope they spend plenty of time celebrating over the Christmas break.”
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 4007 on Saturday 14 December 2019 were 39, 31, 40, 34, 9 and 1, while the supplementary numbers were 17 and 37.
Across Australia, there were four division one entries in Saturday Lotto draw 4007 – two from Victoria and one each from New South Wales and Western Australia.
The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 359 so far this calendar year, including 109 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.