Limerick lotto work syndicate scoops €1m after starting group 'for the craic'

"It’s a lovely amount of money to share with your colleagues," said a syndicate member.
A Limerick city work syndicate has bagged €1m from the National Lottery today, after just setting up the group a couple of months ago for "a bit of craic."
The colleagues purchased their winning ticket from the SuperValu in Castletroy, and the entire group, who wish to remain private, took the day off work to travel up to Dublin to collect their prize money.
“The syndicate is only up and running a few months. We just thought it would be a bit of craic but then all of a sudden, we have a cheque for €1m in our back pocket. Because it’s only a new syndicate, not everybody in work actually joined it. I think that might change in the next few days as more people will want to put their names down in case we win again,” said the syndicate leader.
“It’s a lovely amount of money to share with your colleagues. It’s not an amount that we’d all leave our jobs for, but it’s enough to make some nice little changes in our lives. We’ve spoken as a group and we all have our own little plans like paying off mortgages, upgrading cars and going on holidays. There’s been great excitement for the past week or so and it’s nice to finally get our hands on the cheque so we can start putting all of our plans into reality,” they said.
There were other big winners today; a Kilkenny couple who won the EuroMillions top prize of €500,000 on June 17 also cashed in their winning ticket, which they bought online.
The couple said a quiet Friday night in turned into a life-changing event in the matter of seconds after the EuroMillions draw results came through on their phone.
“Even still, we keep pinching ourselves because it doesn’t feel real. We had planned on having a quiet weekend but that all changed on the night of the draw when I get an email to my phone to tell me that I was a winner. It’s the email that most people get when you play online, and you’d usually expect to see that you’ve won a fiver or a tenner. Once I’d opened it, there were a lot of zeros and we actually had to take a pen and paper to write the amount down to make sure we knew what we’d actually won," said the Kilkenny winner.
Another player to claim a EuroMillions prize worth €500,000 was a player from Co Offaly who won the EuroMillions Plus top prize on June 10. The winner who wished to keep their win private purchased their winning Quick Pick ticket at Scally’s Centra store in Tullamore, Co Offaly.