A Helensvale woman and her family who spent years joking about ‘winning the lottery one day’ are now laughing all the way to the bank with a $1.8 million win in the recent Saturday Gold Lotto draw.

The Gold Coast resident held one of the 11 division one winning entries in Saturday Gold Lotto draw 4409, drawn Saturday 21 October 2023 and pocketed a total prize of $1,818,181.82.

The division one winning entry was unregistered, which means we had no way of contacting the winner and had to wait for them to check their tickets and come forward.

The Queenslander decided to check her lottery ticket while she was buying a present at the local newsagency, and admittedly couldn’t fathom leaving as a newly minted millionaire.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!” she laughed.

“I’ve never won that type of money in my life!

“Luckily, I’m sitting down, or I might fall over.

“You don’t know how much this means to us.

“I’m not a regular player to be honest. I buy a QuickPick once in a while.

“The maximum I’ve ever won is $16 or $17 dollars.

“Our family has always joked about what we would do if we won the Lotto. A lot of hypotheticals! It’s always, ‘If we win lotto, we could do this’.

“I haven’t even told my family yet. I’ve been thinking about how I’ll break the news to them!

“It’s unreal.”

The generous mum had only one thing in mind with her $1.8 million windfall:to help her nearest and dearest.

“This is going to help my family so much!” she shared.

“I’ll help my daughter and son because they need it the most.

“This is amazing.”

The winning entry was purchased at Pacific Fair News, Shop 1571 Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, Hooker Boulevard, Broadbeach.

Pacific Fair News owner Anthony Milligan said the entire team was thrilled for their winning customer and couldn’t believe they’d been part of such a life-changing moment.

“We were only speaking about how amazing it would be to sell a division one entry the other day, and then it happened!” he said.

“We’ve been letting every one of our customers know we’re a winning outlet and you can feel the buzz it creates within the store.

“I just hope they’re as excited as we are and cherish the moment!”

The winning numbers in Saturday Gold Lotto draw 4409 on 21 October 2023 were 30, 29, 7, 2, 31 and 12, while the supplementary numbers were 9 and 33.