A retired couple from Mandurah have won a Division 1 Saturday Lotto prize, worth $521,827, Saturday’s draw, on a ticket bought from Nextra Forum West Newsagency in Mandurah.
The couple have been playing the same numbers for about 30 years with the numbers being selected from family birthday’s and past house numbers.
On the day they bought their winning ticket they had just filled out their special numbers on a new playslip and this was also the first time they had only bought one week’s worth of entries, usually playing their numbers for multiple weeks.
The woman checked the ticket at a Lotterywest store on the way to do grocery shopping and when the retailer told her the news she had to abandon the shopping trip to get straight back home and tell her husband they’d just won Lotto.
She said her husband’s response to the news was: “Well, we can definitely pay the gas bill now”.
The winners described their experience as “hard to believe” and said they “feel a bit numb”.
“I’d always said that winning half a million dollars would be lovely and now my wish has come true,” said the woman.
The winners will use their prize money for more travelling and they will also help their children financially.
“They’re in for a Christmas surprise like no other,” she said.
A spokesperson for Lotterywest said there were 63 Division 1 and first prize Lotto winners in Western Astralia this year with those players sharing in almost $108 million in prize money.
