A last-minute decision to buy a lottery ticket has won a Canberra couple enough cash to pay off their mortgage after they took home half a million dollars on Saturday.
The lucky pair almost didn’t purchase the winning entry, but they emerged as one of eight nationally to take the $497,000 prize in the weekend’s Lotto draw.
After buying the ticket at Erindale Newsagency in Wanniassa, the couple received their life-changing news while grocery shopping.
“Initially, I thought it might have been $1,500 or something like that, but the guy in the shop said you’ve got the six numbers,” one of the lucky winners said.
“I said ‘you sure you’re reading them right?’.
“My wife was waiting in the car. At first I said it was nothing, but then I told her. She hit me across the head,” he laughed.
The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, will use the windfall to pay off their mortgage and some travel is also on the cards. Their boon came about after a late decision.
“I said I wasn’t going to put it on for the weekend, but then as I was putting a ticket on for Tuesday’s Oz Lotto I decided to put one on for Saturday first,” he said.
Erindale Newsagency owner Mark Hughes said the shop couldn’t believe it had sold another division one winning entry, the second in seven months.
“I was as shocked as the winner to see that we’d sold the winning entry,” he said.
“I saw Erindale Newsagency on the list and said ‘you’re kidding!’. It was great to be able to break the news to the winner and share that moment with them.
“Given these things often come in threes and we’ve sold two winning entries during the past seven months, perhaps there’s another one on the horizon!”
Across Australia, there were eight division one winning entries in Saturday Lotto draw 3753, including one in the ACT, two in Queensland, two in Victoria, one in South Australia, and two in Western Australia.
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