Switch from Lotto to Prize Home Tickets Pays Off

An inspired decision to switch from buying lotto tickets to prize home tickets has paid off in a big way for a father of two from the Gold Coast.

It was just his second time buying Endeavour Foundation lottery tickets when Greg* struck the jackpot and won Endeavour Foundation’s Christmas Prize Home in the Glasshouse Mountains valued at $1.1million.

“We’ve bought a lot of lotto tickets over the years,” Greg explained.

“Each month we spend $40 on lotto and I was saying to my wife, ‘I’m not doing any good. I might try these prize homes because there’s not as many tickets and we’d be over the moon if we got one’.”

Greg’s idea to play the odds and make the switch turned out to be a great one and on December 17, 2020 his dreams came true when he received a call from Endeavour Foundation’s Lotteries Manager, Kirsty Moore to tell him he’d won first prize.

“I really wanted to believe her. I think it’s a 50/50 – do you not believe it, or do you think, ‘One day I might win one of these things’”.

However, in the excitement, Greg wasn’t even sure which home he’d won.

“When I bought the tickets on my phone online, I hadn’t really seen the place, so I had to ask, ‘Which place is it?’”

Greg was in fact the winner of a spectacular acreage sanctuary amidst the Glasshouse Mountains with a pool, formal landscaped gardens and the ultimate man cave.

After checking his emails for confirmation, the first thing Greg wanted to do was tell his wife. But it had to be in person.

“I thought I couldn’t make a phone call with that sort of news,” he said.

“I left work pretty quick in a bit of an excited mood and bought a bottle of champagne on the way home to tell my wife and my young kids. My kids are six and eight, so they didn’t really take it in, but the wife was in tears.”

“I hadn’t even told her that I had bought this ticket.”

Greg’s wife had bought a ticket in the draw for another charity’s Prize Home, but it was his Endeavour Foundation ticket that came up trumps.

When it came to handover day, the reality of just what Greg and his family had won was a little overwhelming.

“I’d seen the place online – I think we played the video a couple of hundred times and every time you watch it you see something different – but not having been there or walked through the house, when we arrived it was pretty surreal.

“Kirsty and a few of the guys from Endeavour met us at the gate and we realised this thing was actually real.

“I think there was not a word spoken from the gate down to the house and I was picking up my jaw off the floor,” Greg said with a laugh.

Since receiving the keys, Greg and his family have been spending weekends in their new home and are just starting to explore its beautiful surrounds.

“We’ve been to Caloundra and Australia Zoo. And there’s lots to do in the area with the mountains and the cafes but we haven’t really got there just yet.

“We’re pretty busy with our lives at the moment so we’re just happy to hang around out the back by the pool and just chill at the house. I mow the lawn and then jump in the pool and crack a beer and just hang around.”

“If it was where our friends and family are, and near where our kids go to school, we would definitely be moving in.”

But with their lives based on the Gold Coast, Greg and his wife have made the tough decision to sell their new million-dollar home.

“We want acreage and we’re looking at that at the moment. So, once we sort things out and sell, it will allow us to buy exactly what we want.”

As much as Greg is prepared to part with his new prize home, there’s one prize he won’t be leaving behind – the ‘Kegorator’, a home keg refrigerator that was the finishing touch to the home’s ultimate man cave.

“I’ve always wanted one, so I think I’ll take it!”

Hopefully he will soon be installing it in another rural retreat a little closer to home.

Greg’s decision to support Endeavour Foundation is one he will never regret.

“Endeavour was something that stuck in my mind when my parents were buying tickets years ago. Endeavour was something that I knew was a good cause and I remember we went to the Endeavour Prize homes when I was a kid.”

His parents probably never imagined that it would be Greg that would one day be the proud owner of his very own Endeavour Prize Home.

“Anybody can win it if I am just an ordinary person buying a ticket. Anybody can win.”

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*Winner’s name has been changed for privacy reasons.