It’s taken an Aussie man more than a month to claim his million-dollar lotto win simply because he didn’t think he was lucky enough to ever strike it rich.
A Queensland man from Gympie, near the Sunshine Coast, decided on Thursday to scan a lotto ticket he bought weeks earlier, not expecting much.
‘I went to the local newsagency to check my ticket and the young girls behind the counter said they couldn’t pay out the prize,’ the man said.
‘That’s when I knew it was big.’
Little did he know, but for 39 days he held one of the three division one winning entries in the Saturday Gold Lotto draw 4563, on April 12, and won a staggering $1.6million.
His winning entry wasn’t registered so lotto officials couldn’t contact him to tell him he’d won.
He was left in shock after checking his numbers.
‘I just had to sit and ponder the win for a month. I couldn’t believe it,’ he said.
The Nextra newsagent where the winning ticket was bought
The Gympie man had a $1.6million winning ticket in his hands and didn’t even know it
The winning ticket was bought at Nextra Gympie at Central Shopping Centre and store owner Kelly Goatham said there were a ‘few expletives’ shouted when the ticket was checked.
‘My co-owner Justene thought there was a snake in the house by the way I had yelled out to her,’ she said.
‘The proof is in the pudding that we can, in fact, sell a division one winning entry. This is the first time Justene and I have sold a division one winning entry since we took over.
‘We came in early to get our store decorated with balloons and posters, and we’ve been sharing the exciting news with all of our customers.’
The winning numbers were 45, 3, 22, 17, 13 and 6, while the supplementary numbers were 29 and 31.
In the same draw, two people in Western Australia and another in Queensland were also division one entry winners.
The Gympie man said he didn’t want to be identified and went even further to say he wouldn’t tell many people around him about his new millionaire status, saying he planned to keep his win ‘on the downlow’.
‘It’s pretty surreal. It’s taken a lot to sink in,’ he said.
The Gympie newsagent celebrated the lotto win nearly as much as the man who won the prize
‘My mum and two uncles were big Golden Casket fans. I don’t think they did very well in terms of winnings, but they would be very happy to hear that I’ve taken home division one myself.’
He said his first purchase would be a new car.
According to lotto statistics, the three most common numbers drawn out were 1, 11 and 18.
Ball 14 was the number that came out least followed by number 44.
The most overdue number is 20, which last came out on September 7.
