Emerald resident wins $1.7 million in lotto draw

The winning ticket holder said the first thing he and his partner will do with the win is pay off their house mortgage. PICTURE: THE LOTT

After scoring $1.7 million in the weekend’s TattsLotto draw, an Emerald man woke up his wife in a frenzy during the early hours of the morning to reveal their newly minted millionaire status.

The Hills resident held one of the three division one winning entries in TattsLotto draw 4361, drawn Saturday 6 May 2023 and took home a total prize of $1,746,848.08.

The winning entry was unregistered which meant officials from The Lott had no way of contacting the ticketholder to confirm the winning news and had to wait for them to come forward and claim their prize.

Confirming his newfound fortune with an official from The Lott this morning, the regular player admitted he was overwhelmed by the winning news.

“I’m more in shock than anything – quite overwhelmed!” he said.

Scanning the ticket on his phone at 4am, he said he “couldn’t believe” it came up with the winning prize amount.

“At first, I thought it was $17 but then I saw the extra digits. I woke up my partner and asked her, ‘Can you check this?’ he said.

“She just started saying, ‘Holy s***! Holy s***!’. She would’ve been confused about why I’m waking her up at 4am, but she wasn’t offended after I told her that we’d won $1.7 million!

“I started playing my own lottery numbers four years ago. I said to myself, I can never not play my own numbers because if they came up, I’d be spewing!

The man said he and his partner have shared the news with others close to them, but are otherwise keeping it a secret.

“Who knows, we might celebrate soon!”

With $1.7 million about to hit his bank account, the Victorian shared it was time for him to pay off his mortgage outright, buy a new car and complete some house maintenance work.

“First thing we will do is pay off the house mortgage, which is awesome,” he said.

“Then, I’ll look to buy a brand-new car.

“We’ve wanted to complete some maintenance around the house, so we can finally do that too!”

His winning entry was purchased at Emerald Newsagency at 4 Kilvington Drive in Emerald.

Emerald Newsagency owner Carl Mardinian said he was thrilled to celebrate the seventh division one winning entry at his outlet.

“We’ve very excited for our division one winner and it’s great news for the Emerald community,” he said.

“We’ve very proud of this achievement, and it marks our seventh division one winning entry for Emerald Newsagency.

“We thank the winner for his continuous support of our newsagency and wish the winner all the best with their prize!”

The winning numbers in TattsLotto draw 4361 on 6 May 2023 were 17, 35, 30, 13, 2, and 8, while the supplementary numbers were 34 and 5.

Across Australia, there were three division one winning entries in TattsLotto draw 4361 – one each in Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.

The Lott’s division one winning tally has now reached 360 so far this financial year, including 137 won by Tatts customers.

In 2022, TattsLotto created 171 millionaires across Australia.

During this time, there were 330 division one winning in TattsLotto entries across Australia that collectively won more than $456.6 million.