A Dundee lotto winner has revealed she walked around with a £1m ticket for weeks before she realised she had scooped the jackpot.
Mum-of-three Shaheen Akhtar only checked her numbers against the Wednesday April 12 Lotto Raffle draw when she noticed the ticket lying around in the bottom of her handbag.
Shaheen, who bought the ticket from The Newsagents at the top of Albert Street in Stobswell, said she ran back to the shop when she realised her numbers were an exact match.
“I asked them to check it again,” said the 31-year-old.
“But when it’s a big win it doesn’t tell the retailer the amount and the shopkeeper advised me to call the National Lottery Line.
“I came home and started to call my family to let them know the good news. Most of them were in disbelief and asked things like ‘Are you mad?’. Once I explained that I really had won everyone was really happy for me.”
The Courier revealed in May that Shaheen — who was anonymous at the time — was the third person to have bought a £1m winning ticket in the city in the space of two months.
Shopkeeper Anil had described his alarm when National Lottery officials visited his store to inform him of the win, initially believing them to be investigating a £2 scratchcard complaint from the day before.
The latest win bumps Dundee even higher up Camelot’s winner’s rankings as, incredibly, the city has the sixth highest number of winners (£50,000 and above) per head of population in the UK.
For the full story, pick up Wednesday’s edition of The Courier.
