WA’s Mid-west produces first Division One winners of the year

Western Australia has welcomed its first Division One winners for 2019 with Lotto luck travelling to the Mid-west region.

The weekend’s winning Saturday Lotto tickets, which are unclaimed and each worth $544,506, were produced from Queens Supa IGA plus Liquor in Geraldton, and Dongara IGA.

For the Geraldton store, it was only four months ago the store last delivered a Division One winner worth $2.2 million.

“I’m not sure what we put the luck down to, but our staff are certainly doing something right,” said General Manager of the store Kyme Rigter.

“It’s always a great feeling to know that your home town has delivered a big Lotto win, everyone gets so excited.”

For Dongara IGA, this was their first Division One winner since buying the store 11 years ago.

“We’re thrilled with the news and it’s the talk of the town!” said owner Adrian Scatena.

“To have the State’s only two Division One winning tickets sold in regional towns located within 60 kilometres of each other has beaten pretty incredible odds, similar to winning Lotto I think?”

Almost 73,000 other WA players picked up a Saturday Lotto prize, including 19 Division Two winners who collected a prize worth $7,272.

Lotto fever has no signs of slowing down this week, with Australia’s largest $100 million jackpot up for grabs in Thursday’s Powerball.

The $100 million prize pool has only been matched twice before – in 2018 on Powerball and in 2012 on OZ Lotto. Unprecedented interest in the OZ Lotto jackpot resulted in a final prize pool of $112 million, which was subsequently split amongst four winners.

Powerball’s $100 million is the result of no Australian player matching the game’s winning numbers for the last eight consecutive weeks.

WA players have until 6pm Thursday to purchase their tickets from Lotterywest in-store, online or via the app.

When you play with Lotterywest, all of WA wins with money spent on every ticket being returned to the local community via Lotterywest grants.

In December, Short Term Accommodation for Youth located in Geraldton received a $155,828 Lotterywest grant towards furniture and equipment. The organisation provides youth accommodation facilities which support young people at risk in Geraldton and surrounding areas.

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