26 March 2024
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
Winner admits that winning ticket lay idle in an old handbag for months after receiving a new bag as a Christmas present
There was relief all round in the National Lottery winners’ room after a Cork woman travelled to Dublin to collect a €100,000 prize which she won in the Christmas Millionaire Raffle game. With just days remaining before the prize claims deadline on March 30th, the winner, who prefers to remain anonymous, expressed her relief upon receiving the prize.
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Following a nationwide unclaimed prize appeal from the National Lottery, the lucky Cork woman told how she learned of her win through the Cork news website, CorkBeo. “I don’t usually keep up with the news, so I had no idea that such a significant prize remained unclaimed in the area,” she explained. “It was like a bolt from the blue when I saw the article. Suddenly, I remembered buying a ticket for the draw, but I never imagined it could be the winning one. When I scanned the ticket on my phone and saw the message pop up confirming my win, I was in disbelief. I set the ticket and the phone aside out of pure shock, but after a few hours, I finally composed myself to check again to make sure I wasn’t dreaming,” she said.
Remarkably, the delighted Cork woman admitted that the winning ticket which was purchased at the Friars Road Post Office in Turners Cross had been left in an old handbag since the draw after she received a new bag as a Christmas present. “And to think the thing that could have cost me €100,000 was receiving a lovely new handbag for Christmas! I feel so blessed that I came across the CorkBeo news article when I did because I can’t imagine how I would have felt if I had found the ticket in a couple of months’ time, well after the prize claims deadline. I won’t dwell on what could have been because I now have a cheque for €100,000 which will come in incredibly handy over the coming months. We’ll be able to pay off what’s left of our mortgage and a couple of bills. As a family, we have agreed that we deserve to splurge on ourselves a little bit, so we’ll definitely be upgrading the car over the next couple of weeks, it’s incredibly exciting for us,” she added.
A National Lottery spokesperson reminded all players of the importance of checking tickets to ensure that all prizes, big and small are claimed. “Following a nationwide media awareness campaign for this particular Millionaire Raffle prize, we were absolutely over the moon to finally get the call from this player in Cork to confirm the win just before the prize claim deadline. With tens of thousands of prize winners in our main draws every single week, it is vital that all of our players make sure to check their tickets after every draw to ensure they do not miss out on any prizes. The most common hiding places we see for players storing lottery tickets are in their cars, in jeans pockets and in this case, in old handbags! When purchased, lottery tickets should be treated as a bearer instrument because, ‘It Could Be You’ and the ticket may be worth a life-changing amount of money!”