By Megan Levy and Vince Chadwick
The mystery winner of $24.9 million in this week's Oz Lotto draw purchased their ticket at a Geelong West newsagency, as officials appeal for punters to re-check their tickets.
The unregistered division-one ticket from Tuesday's draw was purchased from Murphy's Newsagency on Pakington Street in Geelong West.
Store owner Richard Murphy said a massive media contingent was awaiting the elusive winner as passing cars tooted in acknowledgement.
‘‘Our normal traffic flow for today is double if not triple, with people coming and checking tickets because they think they can make a mistake,’’ Mr Murphy said.
‘‘There’s been a couple of depressed faces but a lot of people doing little squeals and everything,’’ said Mr Murphy, who by early this afternoon was on to his second glass of champagne.
Staff member Lisa Wahga said about 200 people had come in by 10am to check their tickets and a queue had formed out the front door.
‘‘There are a lot of people who haven’t checked their ticket who are hoping they’ve won,’’ Ms Wahga said.
‘‘But then we’ve got a lot of people who know they haven’t won, they’re just double checking.’’
She said while Murphy’s Newsagency had sold a division-one winning ticket previously, this week’s was the biggest by far.
Tatts spokesperson Louise Azzopardi said the winner may be carrying around the ticket in their wallet or handbag and be unaware of their new multimillionaire status.
“Unfortunately the ticket was not registered to a Tatts Card, so we have no way of knowing who the winner is, or contacting them to tell them the life-changing news,” she said.
“If you purchased an unregistered entry in Tuesday's Oz Lotto draw from Murphy's Newsagency on Pakington Street in Geelong West, please have it checked at a Tatts outlet as soon as possible."
The mystery Victorian was one of three division-one winners to share the $74.8 million Oz Lotto draw, who each won $24.9 million.
As well as the mystery winner from Victoria, two lucky ticket-holders from South Australia and New South Wales will receive a share of the first-division prize pool.
A further 27 division-two winners have each won over $47,000, with 2.2 million receiving a piece of the total prize pool of $119.6 million.
The winning numbers were 17, 8, 28, 34, 41, 42 and 6, with supplementary numbers 4 and 19.
‘‘We’ve still got one bottle of French champagne left," Mr Murphy said. "We came down with three and there’s one to go and we’ve said ‘we’ll save that’. It’s in the chiller.’’
He declined to say how many tickets the store had sold, but said turnover on the Tuesday of the draw was at least ten times the norm.
‘‘We’ve been here 43 years [and] we’d never taken that type of money ever in the history of the business. Amazing. Terrifying.’’The store had hosted winners before, some of whom still play.
‘‘One guy has won twice,’’ Mr Murphy said. ‘‘He still works at Fords. He still comes in and plays and he’s never changed. It’s just what he does... Some people change, other people don’t. This guy is regular as clockwork, in a couple of times a week.’’