THE FIRST LOTTO jackpot winning claimant to come forward following last Saturday’s record-setting shared top prize has revealed he’s been using the same numbers for the last 26 years.
In an astronomically unlikely turn of events, the €3.5 million jackpot is being shared between six ticket holders. The winners will get €588,144 each, rather than the €3,528,865 jackpot.
In the eight years since the National Lottery introduced the current 45 number game, the previous highest number of ticket-holders to share a jackpot was three.
“I checked the results on Saturday night and I couldn’t believe it,” the winning ticket-holder said.
“I got a print out of the numbers and then I showed it to my wife and said, ‘would you look at that, I’ve only gone and won the Lotto’.
“I couldn’t be happier with the amount – it is a great sum of money and I’m delighted that five others have been lucky like me.”
The winner, who is from Meath but declined to have his name publicly disclosed, bought his ticket in Newgate Stores Mace in Navan on the day of the draw.
He said he had played the same numbers since the Lotto began in 1988 — and it’s not the first time he’s had to accept a share of a stated prize amount.
“I won €2,000 a couple of years ago and then about 10 years back I got five numbers. Another 24 people had the same numbers too, so I got €122.”
Perhaps surprisingly, the most popular sequence played in Saturday night’s draw was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If those numbers had been drawn out, the jackpot would have been split 531 ways — into shares of just over €6,645 each.
The second most popular choice of numbers was 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 — a sequence chosen by 455 people, each of whom would have netted €7,755 each if that draw was made.
However, the numbers that matter are the ones that were drawn out, so if you have a ticket bearing this particular sequence — well, you might want to contact Lotto HQ:
The other winning tickets were sold in Dunnes Stores at Redmond Square in Wexford; the Seabury Centra in Malahide; Meaneys Centra in Dromcollogher, Co Limerick; Supervalu, Greystones, Wicklow; and JJ O’Driscoll’s Superstore in Ballinlough, Cork.
The winners have 90 days from the date of the draw to claim their prizes.
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