Woman almost lost $260,000 Instant Scratch-Its ticket, threw it in rubbish bin

A woman needed to rummage through a gross place to find the misplaced lottery ticket that could change her life.

A Victorian woman needed her partner to rummage through their rubbish bin to find her winning $260,000 Instant Scratch-Its ticket that she accidentally threw out.

The young St Helena resident will receive $1000 a week for five years.

She purchased the $5 Live the Life ticket at Aqueduct News & Lotto.

The woman explained she almost missed out on her prize after throwing the ticket away.

“My boyfriend surprised me the other day and brought me home a few tickets, and one of them was this ticket,“ she said.

A St Helena woman was shocked to discover she’d won an extra $1,000 a week for five years after scoring the top prize on an Instant Scratch-Its ticket. Picture: File image

“When I first scratched it, I thought it didn’t win anything, so I just tossed it in the bin. But then my boyfriend grabbed it out of the bin and checked it for me, and he said, ‘What the hell, you’ve won the top prize’.

“I didn’t believe a word he said. I assumed he was just pranking me or it was some kind of novelty ticket.

“It took quite a bit of convincing. We read the instructions on the back of the ticket a few times. He just kept saying to me, ‘You’ve won! You’ve won!’”

The woman from Melbourne‘s northeast said she had never won anything before but had always dreamt of the moment she’d win something.

“It was very surreal when it happened,” she said

“What a fantastic surprise right before Christmas too. My family was stoked when I told them.”

The woman said the win was a ‘fantastic surprise’ before Christmas time. Picture: Supplied

Although she was still coming to terms with the exciting news, the woman said she would use the money to buy a house.

Over the last financial year, 176 people became Instant Scratch-Its top prize winners and collectively took home more than $14m.

There were also 31.2 million wins across all prize tiers worth more than $274m over the same time period.

Originally published as Woman almost lost $260,000 Instant Scratch-Its ticket, threw it in rubbish bin