{"id":191335,"date":"2025-12-14T12:46:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T12:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191335\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T12:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T12:46:17","slug":"the-first-thing-i-did-was-buy-vip-westlife-tickets-louth-lotto-winner-collects-e7-1m-fortune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191335\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The first thing I did was buy VIP Westlife tickets\u2019 \u2013 Louth Lotto winner collects \u20ac7.1m fortune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo: Stock Image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765716377_203_98102df4-528a-4161-a018-7065ba1c8c2d.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Photo: Stock Image<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A Louth Lotto player who scooped a life-changing \u20ac7,129,505 jackpot in the October 18 draw has collected their cheque at National Lottery headquarters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The online player, who has chosen to remain anonymous, said the scale of the win only became clear following a late-night scroll on their phone, with the entire family soon caught up in the shock of the discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cI was watching television with my husband and there wasn\u2019t much happening during the programme, so I started scrolling through my phone,\u201d the winner said. \u201cThat\u2019s when I saw the email about a win. I checked my account and turned to my husband and said, \u2018I think I\u2019ve won the Lotto\u2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cHe didn\u2019t believe me at all and didn\u2019t even look away from the television. When he realised I wasn\u2019t joking, we were both in total shock.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The win was discovered around midnight, and the news quickly spread among family members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cI even rang my mother to tell her, and I think the entire family was awake until about 3am in complete disbelief,\u201d the winner said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The Louth jackpot winner has already treated herself to a special first purchase and is now making plans for the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cThe first thing I did was buy VIP tickets to see Westlife,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m counting down the days to that. My next dream is to buy a holiday home in Ireland. I still can\u2019t believe this has happened, but I\u2019m so excited to celebrate with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The National Lottery confirmed that the Louth win was the largest prize claimed during a recent round of celebrations at its headquarters, where several other winners from around the country also collected prizes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Nearly 30 cent of every euro spent on National Lottery games goes towards Good Causes in areas including sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage and the Irish language. Since its establishment 37 years ago, more than \u20ac6.5 billion has been raised for Good Causes, with \u20ac239.3 million generated in 2024 alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Stock Image A Louth Lotto player who scooped a life-changing \u20ac7,129,505 jackpot in the October 18 draw&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,41886],"class_list":["post-191335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katie-finnegan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}