(UPI) An Irish family who have been playing the lottery together for 25 years using the same set of numbers are celebrating after winning a jackpot of nearly $6.4 million.

The Kilkenny father who manages his family's lottery syndicate told National Lottery officials he was glancing at a newspaper in a local store when he spotted some familiar numbers in the Lotto drawing announcement.

"We have been playing the exact same Lotto numbers for over 25 years so I could spot them from a mile off," the man said. I was queuing up in the shop when I spotted them out of the corner of my eye on the top of one of the newspapers. It was that exact moment, I instantly knew that we had won over 5 million without even having to check the ticket!

The man said he rushed home and called a family meeting to inform his relatives they had won $6,379,856.66

The father said the windfall will come as a relief to the entire family, who have all recently faced financial hardships.

"We won't be rushing into any silly spending sprees with new cars or any of that but the one thing we have all been looking forward to is visiting our own individual banks to pay off our mortgages. There really is no better feeling than that," he said.

The winning ticket was bought from DeLoughry's Gala store on the outskirts of Kilkenny.

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