A TORONTO couple who joked they were the mystery winners of an unclaimed $200,000 lottery draw on New Year's Eve learned this morning they did, in fact, hold the winning ticket.
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The couple are in disbelief today at having unknowingly won the top prize in the Lucky Lotteries Mega Jackpot draw 1188.
The entry was unregistered so NSW Lotteries officials had no way of contacting the winners to break the news.
The husband and wife said they finally got around to checking their entry after months of joking that they were the mystery winners NSW Lotteries had been searching for.
“We bought the ticket before New Year’s Eve and then we went overseas on a holiday for about a month,” the wife said.
“We kept seeing on Facebook that they couldn’t find the mystery Toronto winner and we kept joking that it could be us.
“When we got home from our holiday I kept telling my husband to check that Lucky Lotteries entry, but he didn’t for weeks and weeks. Just a couple of days ago my husband was having such a bad day and he thought ‘I’m going to check that ticket’.
“And sure enough, we were the winners you’d been searching for all along. It’s a pretty funny story, really.
Making news:
“We didn’t in a million years think it would be us, but we did joke about it a lot.”
The woman admitted 2019 could have started quite differently had they realised their good fortune months ago.
“We probably would have had a pretty different start to the year if we realised we’d won on New Year’s Day, but realising now is just as good,” she said.
“The prize has still come at an amazing time, so maybe it was meant to be.
“It was in the centre console of the car. We knew it was there the whole time, we just kept forgetting to check it. I’m just relieved he finally checked it and he didn’t lose it.
“We will be putting it towards a few bills and then hoping we can take a couple of holidays in the future.
“It’s taken a lot of pressure off us, that’s for sure.”
The winning entry of five consecutive numbers was purchased at Toronto News, on The Boulevarde.
Toronto News owner Andrew Fennell said he was glad his customer had finally checked their ticket and claimed their prize.
“You can’t help but worry that someone may have thrown away that very valuable ticket so I was glad when they came in holding the winning entry,” he said.
“It’s great to see this prize go to one of our regular customers. I’m so happy for them."
The Lucky Lotteries Mega Jackpot prize is now $46.84 million for draw 1242, while the Lucky Lotteries Super Jackpot is now $3.88 million for draw 10276.
NSW Lotteries customers can purchase a single ticket number into the Lucky Lotteries Super Jackpot for $2.20 and the Lucky Lotteries Mega Jackpot for $5.50.
