Ten Mackay friends have had their week pleasantly de-railed after discovering their 40-year-old syndicate entry scored $1 million in the weekend’s Saturday Gold Lotto draw.

The North Queensland ex-railway workers held one of five division one winning entries in Saturday Gold Lotto draw 4453 on Saturday 23 March 2024. The group’s entry won a total prize of $1,054,144.91.

One of the winning members revealed how the group came about we called to confirm the wonderful news.

“I’ve been waiting for this call for 40 years!” he laughed.

“Thank you very much! We’re a syndicate. There are 10 of us and when we started, we each picked one number.

“We’ve been playing the syndicate every week since.

“We were all railway workers. We’re pretty much all retired now but we used to all work together. Some of the original boys passed away but someone else always took over the entry.

“We put in a ticket for 10 weeks at a time. Each time it comes around, I message ‘Lotto’s due’, they always pay it. Never had to chase anyone up!

“They’re so excited. We’ll do something to celebrate. We’ve stayed mates, so it’ll be great to see everyone all together again.

“We’ve got five numbers a couple of times. It seemed like we were always just one off or two off. Once we got five and a supplementary number.

“Some of us have had a bit of bad luck in the past few months so it couldn’t have come at a better time.

“The lady at the bank, she’ll be rapt. She’s always seeing me come in. I always say, ‘Maybe next time, we’ll get it!’.

“It’s wonderful, mate. It’ll make retirement even more relaxing for my wife and I. Right now, we’re doing some travel in Australia, so we’ll continue with that!”

The winning System 10 entry was purchased at Nextra Caneland News & Gift, Shop 2066,  Caneland Central, 2 Mangrove Road, Mackay.

Nextra Caneland News & Gift manager Brenda Stockden said she and the team were ecstatic to hear they had sold a division one entry to one of their customers.

“It’s amazing news! We’ve already started placing posters throughout the store,” she said.

“We’re so happy for our customer. Our other customers are all very excited too.

“The last time we sold a division one winning entry was January 2023. We’ve had eight division one winners and two top prize Instant Scratch-Its winners.

“Congratulations and best wishes to the winning group!”