Newsagent doubles its luck by selling two Lotto winners in one day

TWO unconnected Lotto players who picked the same set of winning numbers in the same shop on the same day will probably collect their €200,000 winnings at the same time.

This believe-it-or-not coincidence happened in Cogan's newsagent, Carrigaline, Saturday, March 22.

"It's fantastic," said manager Colm McDonagh.

"We were told there was a winner this morning, and then later today that there was possibly another.

"We'd never had any noteworthy wins before and then these two came at once, it's an amazing coincidence."

The first winner was one half of a married couple from Glanmire who stopped off to do the Lotto while out for a drive.

Two hours after they spent €3 on the winning ticket, Eurico Pereira De Figueiredo, a Portuguese man living in Carrigaline for the past 18 months played a €7.50 ticket with the same winning numbers.

"I picked my winning numbers based on the favourite numbers from my childhood," he said.

The couple from Glanmire, who have one young daughter, picked their winning numbers using a combination of birthdates and the number of their house.

Irish lottery information executive Denis Kirwan said he had never seen such a coincidence in the game's 16-year history.

"They just happened to pick the same numbers in the Lottoplus 2 draw on the same day it was very unusual. We were delighted for both of them," he said.