The Shocking and Unbelievable Secrets of UK Lottery Winners
How do you imagine the average UK lottery winner? Do you see them happy and fulfilled, sipping champagne on a yacht and flashing the world a perfect white smile? Very often, this isn’t what a UK lottery winner is all about. Some of these people have shocking secrets. The wins of some of them are shocking. What others did with the money after winning is even more shocking.
Prepare yourself to be surprised by human stories.
Some of these accounts create a perfect illustration of the fact that reality is often stranger than fiction. Here we go!
The Grandma Who Spent Tens of Thousands on Scratchcards
Grace Walker, a grandmother from Hamilton, made the headlines when she won one million pounds from a scratchcard. According to many, her winning was down to luck. Grace, however, has a dirty little secret that nobody knew of before she won.
After becoming a millionaire, Grace revealed that she’d spent tens of thousands of pounds on scratch lotteries through the years.
Grace told media that she was buying about 30 scratch tickets per week. She tried different lotteries and she bought tickets worth from one to five pounds per piece. Doing the math and assuming that she spent only on the most expensive tickets, that would add up to 8,000 pounds per year!
The strategy is obviously very, very, very bad. For Grace, it did pay out. The lucky and totally adorable grandma said that before cashing the million, she spent two nights with the winning ticket in her pajamas for fears it may get stolen.
Dirty, Dirty Carpets
Over the years, we’ve come across many lottery winner stories. People attribute their luck to so many things out there. These UK lottery winners, however, have managed to surprise us. Their secret? Dirty carpets!
Nick and Zoe Hoare said that had it not been for the dirty carpets in their inn, they wouldn’t have gotten one million pounds from the lottery.
Nick, a 53-year-old part-time farrier, said that running an inn is a challenging job and there’s always something to do. On a Sunday, he decided that it was about time to get the rugs cleaned. The rugs were taken to a cleaner and on the way, Nick bought the winning ticket.
He later on said that had it not been for the carpets, he wouldn’t have gone out that Sunday and he wouldn’t have bought a ticket. Now you know folks, when destiny calls, it could provide life-changing opportunities in many, many ways. Don’t knock the dirty rugs until you try them (figuratively speaking, of course!).
The Lottery Winner Who Lost the Ticket
What could be more shocking than realizing you’re the next UK lottery winner only to find out that you’ve lost the million-pound ticket? This scenario hasn’t happened to just one person in the history of the UK’s lottery.
Martyn and Kay Tott are probably the most distracted couple on the island. For a start, it took them six months to realize that they’d won three million pounds from the lottery. Obviously, once they realized what was going on, they found it quite difficult to locate the ticket.
The entire ordeal unfolded in 2001. Martin eventually had an epiphany after he saw a televised appeal for the winner to come forward. By the time, the couple had already disposed of the winning ticket, which sent them into panic mode.
This is the main reason why Kay and Martyn have been named the unluckiest couple in Britain. Kay and Martin could provide records suggesting that they’d bought the ticket. The story got so popular that even Tony Blair started advocating for them. The lottery, however, announced that without a ticket, there was nothing to be done. Martin and Kay didn’t collect a single penny.
A Family Secret
Life is supposed to get better after winning the lottery, but for many, the exact opposite happens. The phenomenon is known as the curse of the lottery winner – a very scientific thing.
One of the victims is UK lottery winner Gillian Bayford. Gillian believed that her life was going to change for good after she won 148 million pounds. Only 15 months after claiming the prize, however, Gillian and her husband got a divorce.
In addition, Gillian went on to claim that she hadn’t spoken to her family for more than a year, regardless of the fact that her loved ones were given a 20-million-pound share of the jackpot. In an interview she went as far as to say that her family had “disowned” her.
According to Gillian, her parents were enjoying a lavish lifestyle, even refusing the economy class when flying on international vacations. Her mother and father said these were nasty allegations and they didn’t really want anything from Gillian. So, who’s telling the truth in this story?
Keeping It Away from Your Hubby
Speaking of secrets, here’s another family story that’s difficult to believe.
BBC Radio Five Live got a phone-in on the topic of money and happiness. The woman did not identify herself but she said that she’d won 1.5 million pounds from the national lottery. Because of privacy concerns, she decided to remain anonymous when claiming the prize.
What’s even more shocking than that is the fact she didn’t share the news about the win even with her closest people.
The winner claimed that not a single soul on the face of the planet knew the fact she was a millionaire. Even her husband didn’t know! She said that the decision wasn’t made out of greed, but rather because of fears that their lives would change too much. Because of prudent behavior, most of the money hadn’t been spent and nobody was aware of its existence after the passage of some time. The mystery lady said that she felt a bit guilty for the decision, but she also believed it was for the best. Now what do you think about that?
