A NELSON Bay man had a great December after discovering an Instant Scratch-Its ticket he was given for Christmas two years ago held a $100,000 prize.

The top prize winning $5 Warm Wishes Instant Scratch-Its ticket was found languishing in an old gift bag in the linen closet.

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The ticket was originally purchased at Nelson Bay Newsagency, 87 Magnus Street, Nelson Bay.

The man explained why it took him so long to uncover his top prize win.

“We’ve got lots of kids in the family, so for the past few nights, we’ve been wrapping Christmas presents,” he explained.

“We’d run out of the good wrapping paper, and so my wife went into the cupboard and dug out old gift bags to use.

“This ticket was face down in the bottom of this one gift bag, so we had no idea we even had it until then,” he said.

The next morning whilst having breakfast they decided to scratch the ticket, discovering that they had won $100,000.

“We can’t believe it’s been sitting in our linen closet for two years; we’ve walked past that closet so many times, and we’ve cleaned it and had no idea there was $100,000 in it this whole time.

The couple tried to call family members to find out who had given them the ticket, but unfortunately couldn’t find the gift-giver.

“But we decided to buy all of our family a bunch of Instant Scratch-Its tickets and pop them into Christmas cards and hopefully, they have a big win, too,” the man said.

Nelson Bay Newsagency owner Gary Ramponi said he was thrilled to have made one of his customers $100,000 richer.

“It’s incredible – that’s one of the best winning stories I’ve ever heard.

“I’ve owned this outlet for eleven years and the biggest winning ticket we’ve sold is a $100,000 first Prize in the Lucky Lotteries Super Jackpot.

“This is definitely the biggest scratchie win we’ve had,” Mr Ramponi said.

By Tara CAMPBELL