Irish housewife wins record lottery

LONDON: Dolores McNamara, 50, of Garryowen, County Limerick in Ireland, won a 77 million pound lottery jackpot, claimed to be Europe’s largest accumulated fortune after nine rollovers.

The National Lottery in Ireland, which runs the Euromillions jackpot, said it has still not got any registration from McNamara, and hence could not confirm she is a winner. A spokesperson of the Lottery said, “Obviously it is all over the papers, but there is a formal procedure. The offices will be open on Tuesday but it would be mid to late next week at the earliest that the person would get the money, because of the magnitude of the amount.”

Euromillions tickets are sold across the U.K. Austria, Belgium, Portugal, France, Luxembourg and Spain. The winner has to match five main numbers from 1 to 50 and two lucky star number from 1 to 9. The previous record winning in Europe was 72 million pounds of the Italina Superenalotto in May this year, while the world record is 197.4 million pounds won by Andrew Whittaker in the U.S. Powerball in 2002.

McNamara, said her friends, was at the TrackBar in Garryowen, when she realised about the win. A barman said she has six kids and is a nice person. “She had given the ticket to a friend to check, telling her she couldn’t win anything – not even an argument. No one could believe it when she was told she had won.” Her husband Adrian, is a bricklayer and is recovering from a heart surgery.

She is into hiding, said her friends, to escape media interest. Her bank manager is said to have escorted her from the bar to the bank to help here put the ticket in safe. She is now 70th in the list of Ireland’s rich people, even ahead of Manchester United star Roy Keane and Hollywood actor Colin Farrell. She bought the 1.40-pound jackpot ticket on Friday, just hours before the draw.