A 28-year-old Romanian man who came to Ireland to find work six years ago will have a Christmas he will never forget after scooping €100,000 on a National Lottery scratch card.

The lucky winner revealed he will wait until Christmas Day to share news of his amazing win with his family by surprising them with a cheque each for €10,000.

His stroke of good luck is all the sweeter as the man, who lives in the Midlands, lost his job two months ago and is now unemployed. He purchased his winning Christmas Countdown scratch card in the Mace Store in Monard, Co Tipperary.

The man was one of three scratch card winners through the doors of National Lottery headquarters in Dublin on Wednesday 13 December, who between them won a whopping €150,000.

The €100,000 winner said he is especially happy because he can now give financial help to the members of his family who are also living in Ireland. He said he plans to put cheques into big gift boxes for each of his family, and place them under the Christmas tree. 

“I cannot wait to see their faces when they open the boxes on Christmas morning and see what is inside,” he said. “I am going to say nothing about this win until then.”

The winner added that he is now in a financial position to pay a visit to Romania after Christmas to visit relatives, and he may put some of his winnings into doing up the family home which is still there. His big wish for 2018, however, is to find a new job.

Another winner set to have a merry Christmas is a Co Monaghan mother who picked up €20,000 on a Merry Money scratch card purchased from Eugene McCaughey’s shop at the South Mall Shopping Centre in Monaghan town.

The thrilled winner said she is going to bank her winnings and will decide what to do with the money in the New Year. 

“I have all my Christmas shopping already done. I might look at changing the car,” she said.

The third winner through the doors was a Co Louth woman who won a cool €30,000 on an All Cash Tripler game. The winning card was purchased at the Post Office in Louth village.

Meanwhile, a National Lottery spokesperson said sales of the Christmas Millionaire Raffle ticket with a guaranteed top prize of €1 million are brisk. 

The annual raffle, which is limited to half a million tickets, will award over 5,000 prizes. As well as the top prize is a single prize of €250,000, four prizes of €100,000 and 10 prizes of €10,000.

Around 30 cents in every euro spent on National Lottery games go back to good causes all over Ireland in the areas of health, sport, arts, culture and the environment.

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