Double Delight for Ireland Lottery Players

A lottery player in the Irish city of Galway is celebrating this week after winning a substantial bonus and becoming an instant millionaire, courtesy of a special promotion attached to Friday evening’s EuroMillions draw. 

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This windfall was awarded as part of the fresh Lotto Plus raffle from the state-licensed National Lottery, which is promising to hand out four prizes this month each worth €1 million ($1.1 million). Local players entering one of September’s EuroMillions weekend draws are being automatically entered into these alternative contests,a QWERTY with ten weekly finalists also banking a combined €50,000 ($55,640) in Ireland Only Draw rewards.

Bountiful Benefits

The National Lottery revealed the unnamed player took home €1 million via the Lotto Plus promotion alongside an extra €5,000 ($5,560) as a result of their Ireland Only Draw raffle code of I-RCP-82103 being chosen at random. The family-run Monaghan’s Centra and Circle K convenience store on Galway’s busy Seamus Quirke Road sold the winning ticket and is now in line for a €5,000 commission of its own. 

The owner of the providential Galway retailer, Simon Monaghan, admitted to being ‘absolutely thrilled’ with the news before expressing a hope it is ‘one of the locals who has landed this incredible win’. 

“This is a huge boost for our store and the entire area,” Monaghan said. “It's the largest win we've had so far and we couldn’t be happier to be part of such a life-changing moment for one of our customers.” 

Lucrative Leisure  

EuroMillions launched in 2004, while its biweekly draws are now offered by ten lotteries across nine European nations, including France, Spain, Belgium, and Ireland. The game set tongues wagging in December when it awarded a life-changing €240 million ($267 million) prize to an Austrian punter only 17 months after it had handed over some €230 million ($255.8 million) in cash to a British player. 

Alongside the main EuroMillions draw, punters in Ireland have the opportunity to participate in the exclusive EuroMillions Plus game, which promises a cash jackpot of up to €500,000 ($556,370) for anyone who can correctly match five randomly drawn numbers. 

This competition has been running since June of 2007 and has helped the National Lottery raise more than €6 billion ($6.6 billion) to support a range of good causes spanning sport, arts, education, and heritage programs. 

Cautious Counsel 

The most recent EuroMillions Plus draw also took place on Friday evening and saw an unnamed player from north Dublin claim the €500,000 jackpot after picking numbers 13, 14, 20, 31, and 44. The winning ticket was sold at a Spar convenience store on Poppintree Parade with the fortuitous retailer, now set to receive a commission worth €5,000. 

A spokesperson for the National Lottery, Sarah Ruane, confessed to being ‘thrilled to see two players take home such incredible prizes’ before urging punters who may have made their purchases in Dublin or Galway to ‘check their tickets very carefully’. 

For those with winning entries, the representative advised ‘signing the back of your tickets’ and ‘keeping them in a safe place’ before contacting the lottery operator’s prize claims team via e-mail at Claims@Lottery.ie. 

“Over 52,000 players in Ireland won prizes in the EuroMillions and EuroMillions Plus draws on Friday night, with the Galway player, of course, taking the title of biggest winner of the night in Ireland,” Ruane said. “As there was no winner of last night’s €31,511,704 ($35,071,300) jackpot, Tuesday’s jackpot is set to roll to an estimated €40 million ($44.5 million).”