LARRY O'BRIEN may not have much luck on the Lotto himself, but the Co Cavan man certainly appears to be a lucky Lotto link for others. Larry, proprietor of Supervalu in Bailieboro, sold one of Saturday night's winning jackpot tickets. But it is not his first brush with Lotto millions - in 1991, his brother in law won £1.2 million on St Valentine's Day, and in 1993 another of his customers won the Lotto.
"It is fairly unusual that I have a millionaire in the family. We sold the winning ticket for £400,000 in 1993, and now we sold the ticket to another winner. We don't sell a huge amount of Lotto tickets, so I reckon per ratio of ticket sales we must be up near the top," Mr O'Brien told The Irish Times.
There had been "great excitement" in the town yesterday, but no indication of who the jackpot winner as.
The ticket, a £3 Quick Pick, was sold at about 3 p.m. on Saturday. Mr O'Brien speculated that it was probably bought by a local. "We don't get much passing trade here. Because it is a Supervalu, it is generally people who are in doing their shopping who play here. This week was the busiest ever on the Lotto machine."
Newsagent, Ms Nicola Tobin, thought that a prank was being played on her when she got a call at 9.30 a.m. yesterday to tell her she had sold the other winning ticket in Tobin's Newsagents, Trim, Co Meath. It was a £1 Quick Pick, multi draw ticket.
"It was absolute chaos here on Saturday, like Christmas Five. We are also refurbishing the shop, so that added to the madness. We haven't a clue who may have bought it. We get a lot of passing trade as well, so it may not be a local," she said. "I thought it was a stitch up when I got the call."
A spokeswoman for the National Lottery said that more that £5 million had been spent on tickets between Wednesday night's draw and 7.45 on Saturday night.