Reading a story in her local newspaper prompted the woman to check her ticket and realise she had won $503,668.43.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was one of eight division one winners to share in the prize from draw 3857, drawn on Saturday, July 7.

Despite her entry being registered to a Tatts Card, Tatts officials had been unable to make contact with the winner. 

“I saw I had some missed calls on my phone last week but thought it was a scam,” she said.

“But on Saturday I was reading the local paper and it had something in there about a TattsLotto winner in Castlemaine that hadn’t come forward yet.  I thought ‘that’s weird, oh well’, but I thought I should go and check my ticket.

“I used the Lott app to scan my ticket and it came up with a message saying I’d won a big prize.  I thought ‘oh that’s nice, maybe I’ve won $5,000 or something’, not more than half-a-million dollars. It’s pretty awesome!”

The Castlemaine resident plans to share her winnings with her family as well as buying a new car and taking an overseas holiday.

Castlemaine Newsagency in Mostyn Street sold the winning ticket with newsagency owner James O’Brien thrilled to have sold another division one winning entry.

“It’s always exciting to sell a division one winning entry and help change someone’s life,” he said.

“Winning that amount of money would be a life-changing experience for anyone which is great for a small country town.

“We’ve sold 27 division one winning entries from this store over the years and since taking over ownership of the store nearly 20 years ago, we’ve sold ten. The last one was in May 2016.”