THE 21 members of a Chadwicks lottery syndicate collected more than €3 million in winnings at the National Lottery offices yesterday.
The happy group of workers from the builders’ providers centre on Thomas Street in Dublin have been buying lottery tickets together for the past 14 years. Each will walk away with about €140,000.
“Everyone’s just delighted,” said Dave Hanley, one of the winners. “It’s not a big amount of money, but it’s a leg up for everyone.”
To many of the syndicate members, it means relief from debt. “I’m going to clear my mortgage,” said Karen Nolan, adding that she will “go on a mad weekend with friends, go on holiday and look after family and close friends”.
To others it means buying a racehorse and not just a share, but “all four legs of it”.
But fate nearly passed the syndicate by. Mr Hanley admits he made a mistake when he first went to buy the tickets. As a result “the guy gave me back the quickpick plus €60, so I had to go back and do it again”. Crucially, “it was that €60 that we won it on”.
For his part, Jianfei Bi is pleased, as this is the second time in 10 years that his Centra store on Thomas Street has delivered the golden ticket.
“Well done,” he said to the winners as they grinned under a shower of sparkling wine.