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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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Why is it always a “joint” operation…. ? Could they not just say combined ?
@Aurelio Na Fodhla: Only when it’s not about cannabis
@Aurelio Na Fodhla: I always have a wee smile when they use the phrase “joint operation”. I remember a headline from one of the evening papers years ago that read, “Firefighters stoned in Dolphins Barn”. At least they weren’t drunk !
Just think of the tax revenue if it was legal and controlled in the same manner as alcohol & cigarettes. Added benefit of not having to deploy gards & customs agents wasting time over something they cannot eradicate. If the found €2million worth you can be sure there is €200million they didn’t find.
Senseless comment, the majority of people who consume cannabis (or alcohol) are not addicts and enjoy their lives just as much as anyone else. End the stigma please.
Only here for the comments – Bonus
Points will be awarded for originality.
Hash heads pxxs heads whatever else.
Can Irish people go for a swim.
Just enjoy life without adicitions
@The Grand Nagus: hash heads? Nice 1970′s terminology there.
@JustBEERbarry: Sneer all you like, Those hash heads wreaked havoc in the 70’s! YOU WEREN’T THERE MAN
@JustBEERbarry:
Whatever you want to call it its addiction.
I lived with stoners years ago.
Terrible experience.
Paranoid bunch.
@The Grand Nagus: Not as bad as a house of drinkers. Nothing worse!
@Tomo:
True but it all addiction
We have a lovely country..
Go out and enjoy it
Its ten times better without been pxxs
Or stonned
@Alan Biddulph: if you remember it you weren’t there either man!!
@The Grand Nagus: Tell that to the thousands of people who glorify coffee addiction. Caffeine is a lot less healthy than a joint at night!
@Tomo:
Ahh the denial.
OK don’t drink coffee also.
@The Grand Nagus: swim away but just cause people have a pint or a joint doesn’t make em junk!es or pi55 heads. Judgy Judgy like……
@The Grand Nagus: so says the bloke with an addiction to talk absolute ball ox.
@The Grand Nagus: so tell us, were you always this judgemental?
@Tomo: Total nonsense
@Christopher Byrne: what’s nonsense? The part about the house full of drinkers? Or caffeine being an addiction? Or caffeine being more harmful than cannabis? I’m sure you have a watertight arguement.
@The Grand Nagus: sounds like you’re addicted to the oul swimming there. Probably a water-head. Dihydrogen monoxide addiction is a serious issue but the guards are afraid of taking on Big Uisce. I’d say you couldn’t go more than a few days without a hit of H2O or the withdrawals would be the end of you. And you’d probably say you’re just a recreational user. But really it’s all addiction.
@Mac Muinteoir: you’re right, if it’s sea swimming this individual is engaging in its 100% addictive.
I know several daily swimmers and they tell me its an addiction, a buzz.
Funnily enough all these seaswimmers I know also like a pint and/or a smoke too. Huh, weird. Or maybe he likes to refer to it as something else not quite as judgemental as an addiction/buzz.
€2 million for that amount is ridiculous. Do they actually just make up a random figure they think will sound good?
@D: it’s priced per ten spot
@D: No “quarter” given when announcing big busts it seems!
Following the who what where when and how model of journalism I found this article lacking in substance. The lack of detail was astonishing. No Garda or official was named. The place where the drugs were discovered was anonymised. There was no sense that anyone was identified as owning the drugs and so would be liable for prosecution. That might have made a difference to their ongoing illegal activity. It’s like a press release from the Revenue was elevated into an article without ever passing through the interrogation of a journalist’s brain to examine the significance of the information as news.
@feargal ‘2 metres’ de cantuin: covering an informers tracks methinks
Good that they’re finally breaking ground on the drugs that we see destroying lives on a daily bases, by that I mean Heroin, don’t see the same arguments from the usual ‘heads’ on those articles, mostly because they’re really only interested IN the argument, and twisting the screw on those it does matter too. Stay classy ya’ll
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