A Geelong woman who won $960,296 over the weekend checked her ticket “100 times” before she believed the result, according to lotto officials.
“I was hoping you’d be the one calling me this morning,” she told officials over the phone on Monday.
“Oh my god! Thank you so much! It’s unbelievable! Just amazing!”
The woman recounted her jubilation at discovering the win on Sunday.
“I forgot to check my ticket Saturday night and so yesterday I was just sitting at the table eating my breakfast and I thought I’d log into my online account to check my ticket,” she said.
“I saw that it said I’d had a win, but all the other wins I’ve had were about $15 so I just thought it would be something like that.
“But then I saw the actual win amount and I couldn’t believe it.
“I screamed, ‘Oh my god! Come and look at this!’ to my family and they checked the numbers too.
“We were all screaming the house down looking for my husband but he’d taken the dog for a walk so we had to wait for him to come back so we could celebrate together.
“We then went out for lunch to celebrate. We were all sitting there just in shock. My husband kept asking me, ‘are you sure this isn’t a scam?’ He just couldn’t believe it.
“I kept telling him it wasn’t, and that I was sure, but I think we logged into my account 100 times to double check!”
The woman and her family had begun putting together a list of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” to spend the windfall on, she explained.
“We want to do a few things to the house like update our furniture and do some renovations,” she said.
“We’ll probably speak to a financial advisor to see if I am able to retire early. We also might take a family holiday overseas so there are plenty of options!”
The woman was one of four division-one-winning entries nationally in TattsLotto’s Saturday night draw.
She also scored a division six win bolstering her total prize to $960,312.18.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, purchased her ticket online.
