Irish friends share life-changing EuroMillions lottery prize thanks to weekend tradition

IRISH FRIENDS SHARE LIFE-CHANGING EUROMILLIONS LOTTERY PRIZE THANKS TO WEEKEND TRADITION

Two lifelong friends from Dublin in Ireland have shared a huge EuroMillions prize between them, thanks to a weekend tradition that’s been going on for years.The two friends, who decided to remain anonymous as they collected their prize, won on the EuroMillions on December 30th, 2016, by matching the five main numbers and one of the Lucky Stars. Their total prize winnings was €379,410, and one of the men said that buying a ticket for a Friday night EuroMillions draw has been a tradition of theirs for years, just like playing the Lotto 649 was for a Canadian lottery winner of over $10 million.“For many years, we have met religiously in the pub every weekend to watch the football matches on TV and we would always club a few bobs together to do the EuroMillions draw for the following Friday night,” he told lottery officials in Dublin as the two long standing friends collected their prize. Recently, another Irish EuroMillions winner dragged some friends with him to collect his prize, but they had no idea where they were going until they got there. He continued to say that because of the busy Christmas period, he forgot to check all the tickets they’d bought during the festive season, and so he went to a store to have them scanned before they were due to meet up last weekend.“Our first ticket won €30 and I thought, fantastic! That’ll buy us a few pints. When scanned, the second ticket told me to contact National Lottery offices so I thought we might have won a little bit more,” but in fact, the pair of EuroMillions players have won €400,000, he was told on the phone. Syndicates made up of good friends are not uncommon, as in 2015 a group of friends from British Columbia, Canada, shared a $1 million Lotto 649 win, and five friends from New York continued a 10-year tradition when they bought a Mega Millions ticket worth $106 million.The next thing the Irish winner had to do was break the news to his friend, and he did it in a very calm and collected way, just how another recent Irish Lotto winner was after winning €500,000.“I waited as usual to meet him in the pub at the weekend. When we sat down with two pints, I told him that we had won a few quid on the National Lottery over the past few weeks,” he first showed his friend the €30 winning ticket, before finally revealing the second prize, worth €379,410. “We just sat there, grinning like Cheshire cats as we both came to terms with our massive win.”Try your hand at the lottery game and purchase your tickets online at Lottery24.com.