Life changing

Work syndicate celebrate £1Million Lotto win

A work syndicate from Suffolk almost missed out on a £1M win when they didn’t check their ticket. The 20 colleagues at West Suffolk College won the guaranteed £1M Lotto Millionaire Raffle prize.

The Milburn Centre Syndicate, who all work at West Suffolk College in the Construction and Building Services department, are each now celebrating with a £50,000 cheque. The group has been running for six years and play Lucky Dip lines in every draw.

The win very nearly didn’t happen according to syndicate leader Martin Cribb. “I buy our tickets every month keeping them at home and while I check the numbers, I tend to leave the Raffle code checking until the end of the month.

“On this occasion when I took the tickets to be checked one of them became crumpled in the machine and the shopkeeper said we’d need to ring Camelot to verify the details of the ticket as the machine couldn’t read it. Thinking it was a bit of a faff I took it home and left it on the side in the kitchen.”

With the slightly battered ticket floating about his house Martin shudders to think what might have happened. Thankfully, a few days later Martin’s wife was popping to the shops and he asked her to take the ticket and see if the supermarket machine would have better luck.

“I was at work when Sarah rang and said I needed to check the details of one of our Raffle tickets online. I was a bit short with her – I was in the middle of finishing up some grouting at work and didn’t want it ruined – so didn’t call her back and check the details until my work was finished. Going back to my desk and logging onto national-lottery.co.uk I filled in the code and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, £1million!”

Nest egg

Martin immediately called Camelot and then demonstrated tremendous control by not uttering a word to anyone until it had been confirmed.

“It was really difficult to keep calm at work and not say anything but I needed to be 100% sure. As soon as it was all confirmed I sent an email to the other 19 lucky winners. I didn’t tell them how much it was but gave them the log in details and suggested they check out our latest win!

“I can honestly say, letting such a great bunch of people know that we’d won was just the best experience – it’s almost better than having £50,000 in my bank account!”

While most of the syndicate now know that they are £50,000 better off, a few are still enjoying summer holidays oblivious to the fact that a very nice nest egg is waiting when they get home.

Plans for the windfall vary with many of the winners putting the money towards paying off their mortgage. Also on the cards is a garden makeover, some investments for children and a raft of exciting experiences including skiing and a tour of China. And finally, a long overdue engagement ring.

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

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