Premonition Comes True
Last Updated: Thursday 22nd November 2018, 14:57
A premonition about a EuroMillions win came true on Friday 8 February when Ryan Magee won a £6.5 million share of the £96 million jackpot. Ryan, who lives in Londonderry, is now the third biggest lottery winner in Northern Ireland.
Ryan was so confident that his premonition about the EuroMilions superdraw would come true that he bought eleven tickets from four separate towns as he went about his business as an IT specialist. Nobody won the jackpot outright, but because a superdraw jackpot must be paid out, it rolled down to the next highest prize level. That is how Ryan and fifteen other players throughout Europe who had matched five main numbers and one Lucky Star came to win a £6,462,181 share of the jackpot fund.
“In the week leading up to Friday’s draw I was certain I would win,” Ryan said. “I just couldn’t get it out of my head so on the day, while I was travelling on business, I bought tickets in Omagh, Strabane, Coleraine and Londonderry. The winning ticket was the last one of the eleven I checked by which time the numbers were in my head so I knew straight away that I’d won. But despite my premonitions I still couldn’t believe it.”
Buying eleven tickets for one draw might not seem like a lot to some players, but for Ryan it was definitely a change from the norm. “My only regular flutter is three lines on the Saturday Lotto draw so my 11 tickets were out of the ordinary for me – I really did have that lucky feeling,” he said. “I was at a house party on Friday night and all my friends checked their tickets. But I never check my tickets on the night – I always like going to bed thinking I could wake up in the morning a millionaire.”
Ryan is now planning to buy a pet dog for his ten year old son, Lee, after which he may treat himself to a Ferrari. His wife Margaret is interested in moving to “a nice house in the country”.