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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Kevin and Maeve Bracken, who own the Maxol filling Station in Portarlington that sold the prize, with staff in 2019 when they sold a €1m winner at their Portlaoise shop.
A National Lottery spokesperson has said a €263,000 prize might have gone unclaimed were it not for a Leinster Express/Laois Live tweet.
Communications Executive with the National Lottery, Fran Whearty explained that a story warning that there were just 25 days left for the ticket purchaser to collect the €263,058 prize was spotted by a family member of the ticket holder. The winning ticket had been bought in the Maxol service Station in Portlarlington on November 25.
“It’s rare that prizes of this size go unclaimed but when it gets close to the prize claims deadline, you always start to worry if the winner knows that they are in possession of a winning ticket,” Mr Whearty said.
“There was a huge sense of relief to see the celebrations of the Laois family in the National Lottery’s winners’ room last Thursday and there was a bit of a chuckle among the group when we asked about how they found out about the win.
The €260,000 tweet! Admin - This is the post that saved the day and alerted our Laois winner to their unclaimed prize! Thank you!
— Fran Whearty (@FrancisWhearty) February 1, 2024
Luckily for this Laois man, one of his children was on Twitter/X last Monday night and he randomly noticed a tweet from the Leinster Express about the win which raised the alarm at home and low and behold, they eventually found the winning ticket which was worth over €260,000,” said Mr Whearty.
“This man confessed that he never checked his tickets if there wasn’t a big Lotto jackpot win in the area and there is every possibility that he would never have known about the win had it not been for the Leinster Express!” he added.
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