A pair of ex-colleagues from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs have spent their weekend celebrating after their decade-long private syndicate scored them a TattsLotto division one prize of almost $900,000. 

The happy duo held one of the six division one winning entries nationally in TattsLotto draw 4073, drawn Saturday 1 August 2020. Each entry took home a division one prize of $889,834.33. 

As well as winning division one the pair’s System 7 QuickPick entry also scored them division three 6 times, bolstering their total prize to $896,511.13. 

Sharing his excitement with us this morning, one of the syndicate members recounted the moment he discovered their life-changing win. 

“I’ve been waiting for your call since I found out yesterday!” he said excitedly. 

“I had no idea I was a winner until Sunday when I checked the app.

“I usually get an email to say I’ve won a prize, but I hadn’t received it yet, so I had assumed I had won nothing. 

“I logged on to buy next week’s ticket and realised I had some confetti on my screen. 

“That’s when I realised we had won. It was such a pleasant surprise. 

“This is a shared ticket between one of my old friends from work and me. 

“We’ve been playing together for ten years. We always play a QuickPick for ten weeks at a time. 

“I gave him a call on Sunday morning to break the news, and I couldn’t get a hold of him to start with, so I kept calling and calling. 

“When he finally answered, and I told him we had won all he could say was ‘What?!’. It was a great feeling to tell him such good news.” 

When asked how he planned to enjoy his share of the windfall, the happy winner revealed his generous plans. 

“Everyone always dreams of winning division one, and I’ve always said that if I ever won the lottery I would give 10% to charity,” he explained. 

“Whether I won $70 million or $7 million I’ve always thought I would use 10% of it to help someone else. 

“I’m also going to give some to both of my children to help them out too. 

“We are in lockdown at the moment so we can’t do much to celebrate with them, but we told them yesterday and they are thrilled for us.” 

The happy winners, who wish to remain anonymous, purchased their entry online at thelott.com – Australia’s official lotteries.