€1 million Lotto prize all wrapped up! South Dublin syndicate who hid €1 million lottery ticket in old Christmas wrapping paper finally claim prize
A small syndicate in South Dublin have become Ireland’s newest millionaires after claiming their prize of €1 million after winning the Lotto Plus 1 top prize on Wednesday 20th January.
The lucky winners chose a unique location to keep their ticket safe until they were able to claim their life-changing prize: “After we got over the shock of being millionaires, we wanted to put the ticket in a safe place so that nothing would happen to it. For some reason, the first place that I thought of was in amongst some leftover Christmas wrapping paper and cards – I knew no one would be looking in there for a Lotto ticket!”
The Dublin winners, who are the first Lotto Plus 1 top prize winners of 2021, purchased their ticket in the Belfry Spar store in Citywest, Dublin 24.
“We checked the ticket on the website so we knew straight away that we had won. After pacing around the house for what felt like forever, thinking about what we should do, we called the National Lottery and they confirmed our win. I will never forget the relief and joy I felt once we got off the phone.”
The winners are still taking their good news in but have a few plans in mind for their new fortune: “We still can’t quite believe that this is all real but we feel very lucky for this to happen – especially during lockdown! Clearing the mortgage is top of the priority list and then anything after that will be a bonus. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate properly in a few months!”
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on all National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes in the areas of sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage and the Irish Language. In total more than €5.8 Billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 33 years ago. In 2020 alone, €254 million was raised for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland.