Winner of €6.6 million weekend Lotto only remembered to play at last minute

A man who scooped a €6.6 million Lotto jackpot half an hour after remembering to top-up his online account says he is preparing for a “great Christmas”.

The anonymous winner, from Munster, said he started playing online because he regularly forgot to buy a ticket.

Just 30 minutes before Saturday night's draw he checked his account on a National Lottery phone app, and saw there was only €3 left in it.

He topped it up, selected a quick pick, and thought nothing more about it.

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Despite reading the following day that an online player had won the top prize, he still didn’t check his numbers until Sunday night.

“You never actually think it’s going to be you,” he said, speaking from the so-called winners room in National Lottery headquarters in Dublin.

“I’m staring at this cheque with all these zeroes on it and I still cannot believe it.”

The man said he and his family, who will share in the small syndicate win, will take their time over the coming weeks to “try to process this in our own heads.”

“We are going to have a great Christmas, as normal with our family and then we’ll clear the mortgage and bills in the New Year,” he said.

“After that, we’ll just see how we go.”