Euromillios players outside of the UK usually stay anonymous after collecting their impressive windfalls, but they share amazing stories of their life-changing victory every once in a while. One woman from Brussels recently came forward to collect her €17.000.000 jackpot, and described the moment when she discovered her ticket was worth a fortune.
Anonymous Belgian winner matched the numbers 8, 16, 24, 26 and 35, with the Lucky Stars 3 and 11 in the Euromillions draw on October 5th. According to Caroline Vangoidsenhoven, representative of Belgian National Lottery, the lucky woman didn’t realize she won right away, because she wasn’t wearing her glasses at the time. After going through the numbers on her computer, she thought her ticket only matched four of them, but her husband quickly figured out she was wrong.
Vangoidsenhoven said the woman was very calm after hearing she’s about to receive €17.000.000, and promptly validated her ticket. She’ll use the money to help out her family and travel to far-away countries she always dreamed of, including Mexico.
Sandra Debouck, manager of the newspaper store where the ticket was sold, was delighted to hear the lucky news. Her store already has 31 winning tickets hanging on the walls, but this is the first one that led to a jackpot victory. Debouck claims she doesn’t know who the winner is, since a lot of people go through her store every day. She’s suspecting it’s a local, since majority of the customers live in the neighbourhood, but there’s no way to know for sure.