A woman mistakenly threw out her winning £140,000 lottery ticket, which is worth $260,000. She now has her boyfriend to thank who actually retrieved the ticket after foraging through their bins. Hailing from St. Helena, Australia, the winner almost missed out on claiming the $1,000-per-week top prize for five years after she thought she hadn’t won anything. She turned out to be wrong in a big way. It started off when her boyfriend visited the Aqueduct News & Lotto Store to buy a Live the Life ticket for her worth $5. The woman said that her boyfriend had surprised her by bringing her a couple of lottery tickets, including this one.
She said that upon scratching it, she believed she hadn’t won anything, so she threw it in the bin. She was completely unaware that she had almost kissed goodbye to the winning jackpot. It was her luck that her boyfriend decided to give it a second look and it is a good thing he did. He then told her that she had won the top prize. She would receive $1,000 AUD (£540) for the next five years on a weekly basis. She was obviously stunned to hear the news, as she had thought she didn’t win anything.
Therefore, she thought it was just a prank. She said she didn’t believe her boyfriend and thought it was either a prank or a kind of novelty ticket. She said that her boyfriend had to convince her a lot to get her to believe it, as they had to go through the instructions given on the back of the ticket a couple of times. She said that the win was a ‘big shock’ for her and had been very difficult to comprehend. She added that she had always dreamt of winning, but it felt surreal when it finally did.
She added that it was amazing to have won because she hadn’t won anything before. She was also pleased that the fortune had occurred just before the holiday season and that her family was also excited for her. When asked about plans about the jackpot, she said she wasn’t sure because she was still coming to terms with the news. She added that they would probably purchase a house with the prize. There have been around 176 Scratch-Its winners this financial year, who have walked away with top prizes of about $14.7 million.
