‘€29m? It’ll make life easier,’ says Lotto-winning syndicate
THE winners of last week’s massive €29million Euro Millions jackpot travelled to Dublin incognito yesterday to collect their prize from National Lotto HQ yesterday.
The jackpot was scooped by a syndicate from the west of Ireland who bought the winning ‘quick pick’ ticket in Umesh Kumar’s Garryduff XL Store on Pound Road, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, on Friday July 6.
A spokesperson for the syndicate, who are not going public, said the big win is only now beginning to sink in, one week after their lucky numbers came up.
‘This has come as a huge shock but we are thrilled,’ they were quoted as saying. ‘This will certainly make life easier for us all and will secure our futures.’
The lucky winners realised they had scooped the jackpot on Saturday when one of the syndicate members checked the Euro Millions numbers. The rest of the syndicate were quickly informed and last night their spokesman said they would take their time to think about how best to spend their winnings before splashing out on any big purchases.
‘It has been a roller coaster week with lots of butterflies in our stomachs and lots of different emotions. But we are keeping level heads. We will try to take it all in and we’ll give it time before we decide what to do.’
Shop owner Mr Kumar, who moved to Ireland from India in 2011 and bought the Castlebar store where the winning ticket was sold in 2015, said he would use the €25,000 bonus paid by Lotto bosses for selling a winning ticket to extend his store.
It’s the second time Castlebar has hit the headlines for selling a Euro Millions winning ticket. A jackpot winner worth €15million was sold in Staunton’s Costcutter Express in April 2014.
National Lottery chief executive Dermot Griffin congratulated the winners last night as he handed over the jackpot cheque.
He said: ‘We always love seeing happy winners come into our winner’s room here in National Lottery headquarters. This is an incredible amount of money to win, and we have recommended that the winners get independent financial and legal advice.’
Mr Griffin added that there is definitely a case of the ‘luck of the Irish’ when it comes to Euro Millions – 11 jackpots have been won in Ireland since the competition began in 2004.
He said: ‘Not only do we now have our 11th Euro Millions jackpot winner, but we have had 14 winners of Euro Millions Plus top prize of €500,000 so far this year.
‘And this week we had a winner of the Euro Millions Match 5 Plus lucky star prize worth €369,210.
‘Every week in Ireland, we have around 100,000 players who win a cash prize on Euro Millions.’
The most recent jackpot win was in January when a Dublin work syndicate shared €88.5million.