Do you know a lottery winner...? Or have u won a substantial prize?

[CottonCandyCrank]

I was thinking with the amount of people on mumsnet, that some of us should know people who have won a big prize on the lotto/euromillions/euro raffle/set for life/scratchcards etc? I do and they won tens of millions.. fantastic!

I never used to play but started to a couple weeks ago mainly the set for life, I did play the valentines euro and won 11.30 for 2 numbers and both lucky stars.. bit disappointed with the amount but it's better than nothing I suppose 😉 but I did expect more for getting 4 numbers.

What did they do with their winnings? How are they now? Did they disappear? Or still around?

Maybe some of us have been lucky enough to win big..? I haven't unfortunately.. but would love for people to share their stories if there are any lucky winners on here? 😂 what is the most you have won? And how?

Years ago .. when l was a student..l used to collect the football coupons for Littlewoods pools around the neighbourhood.. l got commission depending on how many people did the pools and how much they put on.. one man ( a butcher ) won 2.5 million and didn't even give me a tip.. he sold his shop and retired to Australia.

Someone local to me won £1.8m on the lottery many years ago. It was when it was new and quite a big thing.

Spaffed the lot up the wall on parties, drugs and plastic surgery.

Declared herself bankrupt and had several kids removed by social services.

Did you think he should have given you a tip? Did people often do that after a win?

There was an AMA on here where a woman was pretending she had won the lottery but then said she had over £1 million just in her regular bank and didn't bother investing it. She said nobody knew that she had won the lottery, I think she even said she stayed in the same house and carried on with the same job. Absolutely bonkers.

I don't mean she responds for keeping her job or even keeping her house but the fact that she kept so much money in a regular bank account was just bonkers.

Some lovely stories and some that didn't work out as good.... I love the ones who weren't that well off, it must be so exhilarating and takes so much pressure of them 😄

The people that don't change, it's just so nice that they don't let it get to their head and they actually enjoy it and truly live an amazing life following. The ones that get all snobby and entitled get on my nerves.. they were just lucky at the end of the day, some people's true colours come out after winning something like that 🥺 absolutely no need

It's nice to read the good ones, because we only tend to read about 'the lottery curse' in the paper and the damage its cause to people, which is really sad! I'm sure big wins for the majority makes life so much easier, less stressful and gives them more opportunities that were never likely going to happen.

The ones that enables them to get out abusive and unplesant relationships ❤️ it makes it easier to understand why people stay in these kind of relationships though, financially they can't leave and that's awful that they are unable to get away 😪

I haven't seen that 🤭

Maybe she doesn't know what to do with it, but with that money you would seek out an accountant at the very least. Like many say, 1 million, although It should be massively life changing, it just isn't anymore, so I guess many people will stay in same house and just pay mortgage off etc and it just enables them to live more comfortably I guess

I think if i won something big and I could help other people by sharing tips, I would do 😄 with the likes of the lottery and scratchcards etc, it's just the luck of the draw isn't it?

I do wonder if the lottery is fixed and the numbers are preplanned in advance, based on tickets purchased. I'm not saying they choose the winner specifically, but the numbers generated is possible. Is it even drawn publicly now like it used to be? I never watch it if it is 🤣

@OpheliaNightingale Terrible 🥺 Would u say it could have been related to the money? Or could it easily not have been? I know its not you're story to share but can you say what happened? I understand if not

I would worry about having so much and the world knowing, definately when you're talking over 100mil, I'd especially worry about my children and it'd likely make me paranoid. People will do some cruel things more money.

I do often wonder why people decide to go public.. I cannot see any benefits at all.. zilch, Nada! The people I want to know would know, obviously word gets round, but only in the local area.. that would be enough publicity to me. I'd worry about the impact it would have on people who have ever known me and I'd feel guilty, so the less know the better

I don't want to win so much that it becomes a burden, but £125,000 would be wonderful please and thank you. So far I have only won a couple of £25 premium bond payouts but they are still better than the interest would incur in a regular account.

About 50 years ago a young man who lived in a battered caravan on a spare piece of land in the next village won the pools.

He originally appeared from nowhere one day and the owner of the land let him live in the caravan. On account of physical deformities, a hunched back, excessive hair growth and a heavy wide forehead, people shunned him - this was the unforgiving 1970’s! The locals called him Neanderthal. No one would give him a job so he made ends meet by dealing in scrap. I remember seeing him one winter, ferrying discarded bricks in a wheelbarrow from a crashed lorry back to his field through all the bad weather. It was up a very steep hill as the lorry had tipped over at the bottom.

His win a couple of years later was one of the biggest pools wins and he invested it by turning the field into a reclamation site. He bought a small lorry to collect and deliver stuff in, erected some sheds and eventually built a bungalow on the site. My father was a very charitable person and when he first moved into the caravan would go and check on him and take him food and clothes. In return the young man sourced him a second hand commercial greenhouse in our garden and helped build a brick base and erect the sides and fit the glass.

He built this business up and probably made more in his final years from the profits than he did on the pools. He and my father remained friends and the pools win never came between them - it was never really mentioned. When my father went to wire in a cooker in his new bungalow, he wrote out an invoice and the young man scrutinised every line before paying - it was £15 I recall. My father told me later he only pretended to because he couldn’t actually read.

These are the stories I love to hear. I hope she's had a great life.

This warmed my heart too. The 70s were brutal for anyone different. Good for him, so glad your dad looked out for him. There is good in the world

A lottery winning family moved into my parents street. They did lots of bizarre renovations, bought loads of different cars /motorbikes and had a lot of what must have been very fun parties.

They moved out again after a few years to somewhere more modest. My parents found the noise and chaos infuriating but from a distance I sort of admired the winners for spending with such enthusiasm!

I've never won a lottery, I've always had bad luck.

My friends parents won the £1 million prize from premium bonds about 15 years ago

Another one I can recall was the lottery winner who hankered after moving back to his by now very expensive ‘naice’ village. This was related by my friend who worked for an estate agency.

No houses were up for sale - and they were as rare as hen’s teeth. The lottery winner engaged a property finder to knock on a few doors. He offered owners crazy prices for their houses conditional upon sale and completion within 2-3 weeks. It was literally that quick. One couple accepted the offer and the timeframe for moving was then made shorter and shorter by the impatient lottery winner. In the end they were out within about a week with the offer price adjusted upwards. This adjustment included most of the furniture, crockery, TVs, even the clothes and bed linen! He just desperately wanted to move in instantly. From recollection he paid about £1m over the true value of about £1.5m, just to get quick possession.

I do actually! A man in my village won 1.6 million on the lottery. Lovely chap (in his 60s). This was about 18 months ago...no idea what he's done/doing with his money but he and his wife still live in the very modest semi in our village. His wife did give up her job though (good for her 😍👌🏻). He was already retired.

The amount of pressure to go public is unreal. I agreed and then retracted.
Its a very rabbit in headlights situation and you are continually asked while you cant even think straight!
Especially when youve gone from barely being able to feed your kids to that. I remember very little in the weeks that followed I was on a different planet I would have said yes to anything 🤣🤣

We won money, enough for us to buy our house, although it’s only a small terraced house. We would probably still be saving for a deposit now if it wasn’t for that, so I’m so grateful every day.

I knew someone who won as part of his work syndicate. Just over £600k each

he used the money to set up his own business, knowing it would only go so far. Most of the others just went on sprees and ended up going back to their original low end jobs.

apparently the guy across the road won big but I don’t know him at all

A taxi driver once told me about a delivery he'd made (when previously a van driver) to a big mansion house in a gated community near my destination (which is how we got onto the subject). He'd been chatting to the owner, a single guy who seemed to be in need of company rattling around in his massive house, and he'd shown him his fleet of brand new cars in the garage that he'd been advised to invest in after his win. Taxi driver commented that he didn't seem particularly happy despite his wealth.

A friend, about 10 years ago, as part of a syndicate took £100,000 as his share of the lottery win, although they did buy a large number of tickets each week. Can't say I know anyone else that's won big.

A lady in our town won the Euromillions - she won £180 million. Absolutely crazy amount of money! I can't even begin to imagine it.

My parents won 50k on the lottery just after they'd retired. They invested half of it and used the other half to go round the world for a year, in a mixture of cheap as chips accommodation and 5 star hotels. When my Dad was dying, they spent hours laughing and reminiscing about that trip so it was very much a blessing.