$1.02m Winning Australian Powerball Ticket Kept in Shopping Bag for 13 months

 

$1.02M WINNING AUSTRALIAN POWERBALL TICKET KEPT IN SHOPPING BAG FOR 13 MONTHS

It took a grandfather from Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, 13 months to realize that he has won a $1,020,496 (£620,000) Australian Powerball prize but he so nearly threw the ticket away.The lucky winner has asked to stay anonymous, that’s just like the $23m Australian Powerball winner in 2015. His big Australian Powerball win came from January 2016 but wasn’t discovered until February 2017 when he was cleaning his car. Down in the bottom of a shopping bag was the ticket that had won a $1.02m prize.“I line the bottom of my reusable Aldi shopping bags with old beer cartons to give them some strength," the surprised lottery winner recalled. As he cleared the rubbish out of his car, he decided to put new cartons in the bottom of all bags as they were beginning to get torn and it was then his amazing discovery of the Australian Powerball ticket was made. Double EuroMillions winners Jane and Alan Slater from England also discovered a winning ticket in their car.Once he saw the lottery ticket he went online to check the numbers and the truth came out that he was a lottery millionaire. "I'm glad I didn't just get the old bags and take them to the dump. I thought I'd been pretty stupid. I was thinking 'Wow! I could've thrown this out!' It got very close," he added.A woman, also from New South Wales, had a $2.7m winning Australian Lotto ticket in her handbag for 12 days before finding out its true value. Robert Unikewicz from Portland in Connecticut, USA, had his $50,000 Powerball ticket sat on his desk for three months.Later this month it’s the Dia Del Padre drawwhich takes place in Spain on Father’s Day. This generous father and grandfather now plans to use his Australian Powerball winnings to help his adult children pay their mortgages and help fund his grandchildren’s education. Doing that will “smooth the troubled water in front of them,” said the generous winner.Cheryl Tuckerman, the owner of the Nextra Marketown Newsagency in Newcastle where the Australian Powerball ticket was purchased, said she was "over the moon" that finally after all this time someone had claiming their winnings. “You wouldn't believe how many customers we've had coming in during the past year asking whether the winner had been found. "We're excited to be able to tell them that now it has."Purchase your tickets online at Lottery24.com and we will inform you in writing of all your winnings.