The man who kissed goodbye to millions by walking out on lottery winner

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351873/The-man-kissed-goodbye-millions-walking-lottery-winner.html


When ironworker Jamie Eisel split from his Irish wife Patricia last year, most thought she had got the raw end of the deal.

She seemed shattered by the break-up, while Jamie was said to have toughed it out and moved on to a new romance.

Now that his estranged wife – known to friends as Trisha – has won $21.5m on the New York State Lottery, they may have to change their minds. The question is whether he is likely to try laying claim to any part of her windfall.


Winner: Patricia Eisel (centre) who won $21,500,000 on the New York lotto, back at home in Tullamore, Co Offaly, with her family from left: sister Trezann, brothers Brendan and Brian and her mother Margaret

The couple, who have three young sons, only split up last summer after their lengthy marriage hit the rocks. Jamie continues to live near his 40-year-old wife and children in Long Beach, New York.

‘They’re still good friends,’ said one neighbour, who lives downstairs from Trisha and the children in the modest two-family house where they have the upstairs apartment.

Split: Iron worker Jamie Eisel

‘They share the kids between them. As far as I know, it’s all very amicable.’

New Yorker Jamie is an ironworker and part-time bartender.

Trisha has not been wearing her wedding ring during her trip home to Ireland.

‘He left her,’ said a Tullamore resident who knows the family. ‘It will be interesting now to see if he will go and seek a share of the win.’

But as Jamie pondered his next move, Trisha took a break from her job at The Saloon bar and spent this weekend celebrating her good fortune with her mother Margaret Daly, her brothers and her sister in Tullamore – and speaking of the lucky breaks that led to her lucky break.

Trisha only won the jackpot because her flight home to Ireland had been cancelled due to the severe weather before Christmas.

That apparently cruel twist of fate meant she was in New York to buy the lottery ticket that won her $21,500,000.

Despite her newfound riches, the 40-year-old mother of three young boys – Cory, nine, Ryan, seven, and four-year-old Liam – is determined to keep away from wild extravagance. Instead of treating herself to a first-class seat on the flight home, Trisha settled for an economy ticket.

But once back in Ireland, she allowed herself a few treats. She booked herself and her family into a suite at the Tullamore Court Hotel where the most expensive room is the presidential suite, costing €170 a night.

The Daly family toasted Trisha’s good luck there with chilled bottles of champagne.

Talking yesterday about the difference her newfound fortune will make to her life Trisha said: ‘I have been in America since ’95. I babysat at first and right now I live in Long Beach. I waitress and bar-tend and mind kids.

‘It’s a struggle to keep it all together but it’s good – the bar’s good where I work. But this is going to make it a lot better.’


I've won!: A delighted Patrica Eisel pictured in her home town of Tullamore

In the tradition of lottery winners everywhere, Trisha has sworn ‘to keep life normal, no big purchases’. She even said she’d keep working ‘for a while’.

Priority number one, she said, was ‘a house with a yard – no more renting’.

She spoke about how the heavy snow in Ireland had prompted her to cancel her trip home for Christmas. It was while on a quick errand into a grocery store while on her way to a laundrette near her home in New York that she made the fateful purchase of a lottery ticket.

Having won seven dollars on a previous lottery draw, she ‘asked the guy, “What’s on tonight?”. He said, “Power Ball and Lottery.” I added a dollar to my $7 ticket and said, “Give me a $4 quick pick on both”.’

Within hours of the draw, she realised that she had purchased the winning ticket. She started to shake at the realisation but did nothing about the ticket.

‘I kept it for three weeks,’ she said yesterday.

‘I got nervous, I didn’t want any attention on my kids and I wanted to think.’




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