Coffs Harbour and Lismore winners share Wednesday Lotto $4 million

The Coffs Harbour winner of $2 million in the January 5 Wednesday Lotto draw has come forward and claimed her prize.

Choosing to remain anonymous, the winner is a single mother, who had a sleepless night following the realisation that she had won the huge amount.

It's always a lucky to win such an amount at such odds, but this win had an extra amount of luck thrown in. Tt was only down to urging from her daughter that she bought the ticket at all.

“I buy Lotto regularly. I always put these numbers on when there is a jackpot, but this week I couldn’t really afford to play. My daughter was buying a ticket and she convinced me to put my ticket on too, this so very nearly passed me by,” the Coffs Harbour winner reflected.

“I’ve struggled all of my life, even as a child we didn’t have very much. I’ve been renting for the last 20 years and have always had to survive on a very tight budget.

“Recent years have been particularly difficult both emotionally and financially as there have been some illnesses in the family,” the woman in her fifties explained.

“I didn’t watch the draw on TV but my son took the numbers down and gave them to me. I didn’t get around to checking them until I was going to bed on Thursday night, needless to say I didn’t get any sleep after I did check my numbers.

“When I realised I had all six winning numbers I started yelling for my son. He came running upstairs thinking we were being broken into. I was totally incoherent, I wasn’t making any sense. When he looked at my ticket and realized what I was yelling about he fell to his knees is shock,” the winner laughed as she recalled the moment she realised she had won a $2 million share in Wednesday Lotto’s prize.

“My struggles have made me very grounded, so I won’t waste my prize. I’ll buy a house, help my children and one thing I’m looking forward to doing is buying a new lounge. The one I currently have has sheets covering it; I can’t wait to get a new one.

“I’m just so grateful for this, I understand how fortunate I am to have something like this happen and I’ll never forget that,” the Coffs Harbour winner said.

The winning ticket was purchased at Park Beach Plaza Kiosk, Coffs Harbour.

The other winner of $2 million is the same draw was a pensioner from the NSW town of Lismore.