Syndicate of crane engineers bag a £1 million cargo

The group were bought together when they started working the F Shift 8 years ago by syndicate leader Steven Walker. They play 6 lines each draw and while they have had a few nice little wins along the way, nothing like the £1 million Lotto Millionaire Raffle pot had turned up before now.

Steven said, “I buy our tickets online every month because if you aren’t in it, you can’t win it! I’m used to receiving the odd email to say ‘there’s news about your ticket’ and to be honest don’t always check the account to see how much. I’m not sure why on this occasion I did actually log-in, but I’m very pleased I did!”

At work when he logged on, Steven found a treasure trove of previous small wins but the one that really grabbed his attention had a lot more noughts that he was expecting.

“I was having a cup of tea at work when I decided to log on to the account. When I saw £1,000,000 starring back at me I thought there must be a mistake so I logged straight out of the account and then back in but it was still there!”

Big Kiss for Steven

With most of the syndicate on the same shift as Steven he was able to secretly take them to one side to share the news.

“The first person I told was Paul Jarvis. I pulled him aside and said ‘in about five seconds you’re going to give me a big kiss on the cheek!’ He looked at me pretty blankly until I said ‘we’ve won £125,000’ whereupon he started to look pretty happy, but when I explained it was £125,000 each he used a little bit of choice language and was overjoyed. Funnily enough, he did give me that kiss!”

The pair wasted no time in telling the others announcing a workshop meeting where the other syndicate members could discover that they were each £125,000 better off.

One of the syndicate members, Gary Porley still plays despite retiring from the shift a few months ago. He was at the airport flying to Cyprus for his daughter’s wedding when Steven rang to share the good news.

Steven said, “Gary was overjoyed. He could fly off to give his daughter away knowing that there was £125,000 waiting for him when he gets back, it’s simply magic.”

While some of the syndicate are already retired, others are just starting out and for these members of F Shift the win means a step up onto the property ladder and for those already there, a big chunk off their mortgage.

The syndicate come from the luckiest postcode in the land. The Romford (RM) postcode has more winners of major National Lottery prizes per head of player population than anywhere else in the land. Read more about the lucky postcodes.