A Dublin man has spoken of his luck after discovering a winning €500,000 EuroMillions ticket while cleaning out a drawer.
The man who bought the lucky ticket said he only found out about his win by chance after he sat down to check on a bundle of old lottery tickets which he found when cleaning out a drawer in his family’s home.
“I would regularly buy my EuroMillions and Lotto tickets but I’m very guilty of never checking them. I came across a bundle of tickets on Thursday evening so I sat down to check them on the lottery website,” he said.
“ I hadn’t a clue what was going on so I popped down to the local shop to check the ticket and I got the same message. I knew then that I had to have won a significant prize but I just didn’t expect it to be a half a million euro,” he said.
The winning Quick Pick ticket was bought in Dunnes Stores in Portmarnock, Co Dublin on January 26th, on the day of the draw.
“We had heard about the win in the town way back in January but we had absolutely no idea it was us. We had been back to Dunnes several times since but it never dawned on us to check our tickets,” he said.
The man said he will take some time out before deciding what to do with the win but said any decisions would be made with his young family in mind.
“It’s a massive a shock to the system, we didn’t know if we’d be picking up a €500 prize or a €100 million! We’re just glad that we have the cheque in our hand now so we’ll take some time out to process the win properly and we’ll make a nice plan for the future,” he said.
Following Friday’s €500,000 EuroMillions Plus claim, a spokesman from the National Lottery urged people to check their lottery tickets regularly after each draw.
