Lotto confirm winning €17.4m EuroMillions ticket held by Tipp shop syndicate
The National Lottery has confirmed that a ticket held by a shop syndicate in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, has been verified as the winner of last night’s mega €17 million EuroMillions jackpot.
"We can now confirm that the ticket held by the Stakelum’s Hardware Syndicate in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, has been verified as winner of last night's EuroMillions jackpot and arrangements are being made for the group to make their claim in the next week," a spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the 32-member syndicate spoke of the shock and delight of the group at their win.
We simply can’t believe it," they said.
We are all in shock but absolutely delighted and it is great to see this massive amount of money shared with so many colleagues.
"We all get more than half a million Euros each which is a lovely amount of money.
"We need some time to let this sink in and we look forward to going to Lotto HQ in the next week or so to get the cheque."
The winning ticket was sold in the Eason store in Thurles Shopping Centre in Co. Tipperary just eight months after the shop sold a €7.5 million Lotto winner.
"This is terrific news we are thrilled for the syndicate members, and for Thurles which has become a very lucky National Lottery town," said National Lottery CEO, Dermot Griffin.
It is always nice to see a mega jackpot like this shared amongst several people.
"We look forward to welcoming the happy group in the National Lottery Winner’s Room next week."
This is the 13th Irish win EuroMillions jackpot win since the game was launched in 2004.
The National Lottery have revealed that the shop that sold last night's €17.4m winning EuroMillions ticket, also sold a ticket that scooped €7.5m in the Lotto, only eight months ago.
Eason in Thurles shopping Centre in Co. Tipperary is the shop responsible for both winning tickets, with a Quick Pick ticket taking last night's EuroMillions jackpot.
The owner of Eason in Thurles, Tom O’Toole, said: “We are in shock. We can’t quite believe that we have sold two massive jackpot winning tickets in quick succession.
"We are only recovering after selling a €7.5m Lotto jackpot winning ticket last October. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine we would be selling a €17 million EuroMillions ticket so soon after.”
“We have had a lot of people buying lottery tickets since our win in October. And we also saw an increase in Scratch Card sales of around 20%.
After this we may be known as the luckiest shop in Ireland.
"It is fantastic for Thurles and we wish the winners all the best of luck with this massive win,” Mr O’Toole added.
The country’s latest EuroMillions lottery winners are members of a 32-person syndicate who work at a well-known hardware store in Co. Tipperary.
The winners of the €17.4m bonanza are from Stakelum’s Home and Hardware business in Thurles and they are expected to claim their prize within the coming week.
National Lottery headquarters would not confirm the identity of the winners, but said this morning that contact had been made earlier in the day by the winning ticket-holder.
“It is a syndicate, but we are not confirming anything beyond that,” lottery spokeswoman Miriam Donohoe said.
“We have procedures to go through. We are making arrangements for the money to be claimed. It takes some days for all of the money from the EuroMillion to land in our account.”
It’s understood the money will not be ready for collection by the end of this week but the winning syndicate may well travel to Dublin some time early next week to claim the jackpot.
A staff member at the popular hardware and homeware shop confirmed that the Euromillions “was won by a syndicate here in Stakelum’s”.
She said there were 32 people in the syndicate, out of about 70 staff in total at the company, and would not comment any further on who is or isn’t a member.
Each winner will pick up more than €543,000 for their trouble.
It’s not been revealed yet where exactly the winning ticket was sold, although it’s understood to have been a local shop in Thurles.
Stakelum’s was established in the town in 1960 and has been family-run ever since, currently managed by John and Pat Stakelum.
The business was formerly close to the town centre but moved to a 70,000 sq ft premises at the Racecourse Retail Park in Thurles in 2006.
There have been several Irish winners of the EuroMillions jackpot since the draw was established over a decade ago, with Limerick woman Dolores McNamara still the country’s biggest winner with a €115m jackpot in 2005.
