€49M EuroMillions Winner Claims Prize Ahead of Special Raffle Week
The winner of July’s €49.5 million EuroMillions jackpot has claimed their prize from the Irish Lottery’s Dublin headquarters. The prize claim comes ahead of a special week of EuroMillions Ireland Only Raffles, during which two guaranteed millionaires will be made.
Ireland’s 18th EuroMillions Winner
The latest big EuroMillions win in Ireland arrived on 21st July after one lucky ticket holder matched the numbers 14, 15, 24, 29, 42, and Lucky Stars 2 and 4 to win a sum worth €49,564,587. They became the 18th EuroMillions jackpot winner in Ireland and the second of 2020.
It was revealed that the winner travelled to the Irish Lottery’s offices in Dublin on Friday 7th August to claim the prize. The winner’s identity has not been disclosed as she chose to remain anonymous, but she did talk about the win and described how it felt to find out she was a multimillionaire.
“On the night of the draw, I checked my phone around midnight and there was an email to say I had won a prize on my EuroMillions ticket,” she said. “What happened next will stick with me for the rest of my life. On the ticket, it said that there was one winner of the EuroMillions jackpot and that winner was me.
“I was in such a state of shock, I had to tell somebody so I called my friend straight away. When I tried to explain that I had won the EuroMillions jackpot, he instantly dismissed it, saying that either I was dreaming or that I had been drinking.”
The €49 million jackpot places the winner in seventh place on the list of Ireland’s biggest ever EuroMillions winners. When talking about what she planned to do with the money, she said she would use some of it to help the people close to her.
“I am going to surround myself with some people to properly advise me on the best way to make plans for my money, but my main priority is to help my family and friends,” she said.
Two Millionaires Guaranteed This Week
The jackpot winner claimed their prize ahead of an exciting week in EuroMillions, as the Irish Lottery announced that two guaranteed millionaires will be made. Special editions of the Ireland Only Raffle will take place on Tuesday 11th and Friday 14th August and there will be one prize worth €1 million given out in each of them.
The Ireland Only Raffle takes place alongside every EuroMillions draw and in standard raffles 10 prizes worth €5,000 are given away. That will still be the case in this week’s draws but those 10 winners will then be entered into a second raffle to win the €1 million prize up for grabs on that date. That means across the two raffles set to take place this week, there will be a total guaranteed prize fund worth €2.1 million. That’s in addition to the prizes on offer in the main EuroMillions draw.
All it takes to be in with a chance of winning one of the million-euro prizes is to buy an entry for the EuroMillions draw on 11th August or on 14th August. If you buy tickets for both draws you’ll be entered into both raffles. You’ll receive a unique code for the Ireland Only Raffle for every line of EuroMillions numbers you purchase.
If you’re wondering how the prizes can be guaranteed, it’s because only the codes that have been generated are entered into the raffle; every winning code is linked to a ticket that someone has purchased.
EuroMillions draws take place at around 8pm every Tuesday and Friday and you can purchase tickets online or from any lottery retailer in Ireland. The winning numbers and every winning raffle code are added to the EuroMillions Results page straight after every draw.
Written by Alister Burton, 10th August 2020
