Chris and Colin Weir, winners of the largest ever UK lottery jackpot

A couple from Largs in Ayrshire won a £161m Euromillions jackpot making them the UK's largest ever winners

Chris Weir said she and her husband Colin were "tickled pink" when they realised they had scooped the jackpot last year.

Chris Weir

"I even had a glass of white wine which is something I normally only do at Christmas!" laughed Chris.

The prize was Europe's biggest ever and was capped after a series of rollovers.

On the night of the draw Chris was checking their numbers on the BBC's Red Button digital text service about midnight on the television in their bedroom.

"I started circling the numbers I had matched but wasn't doing very well. Then on the fifth line, all the circles seemed to join up."

The telephone line run by Camelot for claims was closed. Chris and husband Colin sat up all night they were so excited.

"When we first realised we had won, it felt like a dream," Colin said. "Everything went into slow motion."

Life changing

When asked at a media conference in Falkirk what they will do with the money, Chris said: "We're not flashy people."

"The next steps are going to be the most difficult... with great wealth comes great responsibility," added Colin.

The Weirs have both had serious health conditions in recent years and have not been able to work.

Colin, 64, had previously worked as a television cameraman and Chris, 55, is a fully-trained psychiatric nurse.

The most exciting aspect of their windfall is the opportunity to travel.

"We have both always wanted to see the Great Wall of China and Colin would love to stand at the foot of Ayers Rock in Australia," said Chris.

"We also love art galleries, so this gives us the chance to visit those in Paris and in Russia. These are all things we thought we would never see."

They have also already decided to buy homes for their two children, Carly and Jamie (both in their 20s).

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Meet the Scottish Couple who won £8.5 million on Lotto

This Scottish couple won £8.5m on the National Lottery back in 2005. This is their story.

Alec and Sandra Fraser, of Loanhead, Midlothian, bought the golden ticket at the local Scotmid store.
Mr Fraser used to live in the town's Paradykes Avenue with his parents.
By coincidence, family friends Catherine and John Peacock won £1.4m on the lottery while living in the same street in 2003.
The Peacocks presented Hibs fans Mr and Mrs Fraser with their cheque at the football club's Easter Road ground.
If you can imagine the sight, there were two overweight adults jumpng about the living room

Alex Fraser

Mr Fraser said he found out he had hit the jackpot on Sunday morning after checking his lottery numbers on television. "I went for a cigarette and the lottery tickets were underneath the packet and I said 'oh yes, the lottery, I'd better check it'," he said.

'Heart pumping'

"I got Teletext on, I'd £10 worth, so I was checking one and Sandra checked the other.
"I threw mine in the bin, no winners, but Sandra said she had four numbers, which I said was good."
Mr Fraser said he took the ticket and checked the numbers on television.
"The old heart started pumping a bit," he went on.
"I got the glasses on, I lifted it up again, checked it again and, if you can imagine the sight, there were two overweight adults jumping about the living room.
"It was absolutely fantastic."
Mr Fraser said he intended to give up his job as a driver but would continue to help out on a voluntary basis.
The lifelong Hibs fan said he would consider buying a box at Easter Road and planned to buy a new house, a new car and then "play it by ear".
But he revealed he would not buy another lottery ticket.

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£101m EuroMillions winner - Dave Dawes

A couple who scooped over £101 million in the EuroMillions draw had only played twice before, they revealed today.

It really was third time lucky for Dave Dawes, 47, a shift supervisor for Premier Foods, and Angela Dawes, 43, a volunteer for the British Heart Foundation, when they hit the jackpot last Friday.

The couple, from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, also became the third biggest lottery winners in the UK.
Mr Dawes described today how they discovered their win.

He said: "We were watching TV and the EuroMillions draw show came on so we kept watching, not thinking we would win anything.

"We got our tickets out and watched in shock as, one by one, the numbers came up on the line I'd chosen.

"We couldn't believe it! It was too late to call Camelot so I kept the ticket on me all night until the morning but we didn't sleep a wink."

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Lottery stories to make you glad you haven’t won a jackpot.

Most of us have daydreamed about what we would do if we won the lottery, but in real life, it doesn’t always work out.

I Threw Away £100,000!

In April 2010 Mail driver Cemal Celikkanat, 38, made the headlines when it emerged that he had thrown away a £100,000 winning scratch card. He’d scratched off the cover but not understood the rules. Thinking the three £100,000 symbols on his national Lottery Blue Card had to be all in a row and not just anywhere, Cemal simply threw his scratchcard away.

Ironically, he only discovered his mistake because a work colleague asked him to collect the £25 winnings she had on another Blue scratchcard. Upon discovering his mistake Cemal rushed to the shop where he had bought and disposed of his ticket to see if he could retrieve it. Unfortunately, the bin had been emptied the night before and the contents had already been taken to the local incinerator.

As the National Lottery operators rules clearly state that they will only pay out when winning scratchcards are produced, there was little Cemal could do.

Celikkanat told his local newspaper the Sheffield Star: “I threw away £100,000. I feel so terrible, I think about it every day. It’s had a massive impact on my life.” As I think it would with anyone’s life.

We hope you win again Cemal, but this time collect your winnings.

€10,000 In-flight Meal

One of the most bizarre lottery stories has to be the one about an un-named Ryan Air passenger.

On a Ryan Air flight to East Midlands Airport from Krakow in Poland, a gentlemen won €10,000 on a scratchcard he purchased on the flight from one of the cabin crew.

However, his excitement at winning soon turned to frustration when he discovered that he would have to claim his win directly from Camelot as understandably the Ryan Air crew didn’t have enough cash to payout his winnings.

The man didn’t seem to understand this and became more and more annoyed. Eventually, despite the attempts of fellow passengers and the Ryan Air crew to placate the man, out of sheer frustration the man ate his ticket.

No wonder he decided to remain un-named.

Winning The Lottery Was The Worst Thing That Ever happened To Me!

In Keith Gough’s case, the reality of winning a lottery jackpot was certainly nothing like he had imagined it would be.

Back in 2005 Keith, then a 58 year old baker won £9 million. He later told newspapers that his lottery win had completely ruined his life.

He had blown most of his winnings, lost his wife of 25 years and fallen out with all his friends.

Keith claimed that boredom had driven him to drink which he blames for his woes. Boredom brought on because he gave up his job after winning.

He was also duped out of £700,000 by James Prince, a conman who persuaded him to invest in bogus business schemes. This came as a result of his drinking as he met Mr Prince whilst being treated for alcohol dependency at the renowned Priory rehabilitation clinic in Birmingham.

Prince was subsequently arrested, tried and jailed for 3 years for fraud but Keith Gough never got his money back.

Keith died in March 2010 after a heart attack brought on by drink and stress.

Keith’s story is testament to the saying ‘money can buy you everything except happiness’.

What type of lottery winner would you be?

Lottery winners are defined by their initial reaction to discovering that they have won a lottery jackpot.

They either seek publicity or shun publicity. Often, the decision isn’t a conscious one. If you happen to be in a public place when you discover that you’ve won, your instinctive reaction may such that before you know it everyone around you knows you’ve won and you haven’t even considered whether you’d like publicity or not. That in itself may not lead to the type of publicity you could get if you agreed with The National Lottery operators Camelot that you wanted to ‘go public’, but a call to a local newspaper by a witness to your reaction could spark off quite a media scrum.

Those who actively seek out privacy will sometimes not even tell their closest friends or family. Fear of becoming known only as ‘that person who won the lottery’ is often the reason for this type of reaction.

On the other hand, some people yearn for the publicity, although if they still feel that way after their lives have been turned upside down and their actions scrutinised by everyone is unsure.

In 1995 Mark Gardiner from Hastings won a half share of £22.m million in the National Lottery. His story isn’t untypical and would make anyone think twice about going public. How Winning The Lottery Ruined My Life

Back in 2003, Callie Rogers scooped a £1.9m Lotto jackpot aged just 16. Read how she ended up penniless just six years later. Lottery Winner At 16

Some lottery winners stories take a bit of believing, particularly the two told in this article where neither winner actually got to collect their prizes. Lottery Winners Stories

What chances do I have of winning a Lotto jackpot?

Did you ever wonder what the odds of winning any one of the prizes in the UK National Lottery are? Or what your chances are of winning a jackpot? Well now you can find out and work out for yourself if buying lottery tickets is worthwhile.

What Are The Odds Of Winning The Lotto Jackpot?

To win a jackpot prize in the National Lottery (Lotto) you must correctly predict all six winning numbers. Here we can calculate the chance of this happening.

The numbers you have to select from for the National Lottery Lotto game are 1 to 49. So, for the first winning number there are 49 balls that have an equal chance of being selected. On your Lotto ticket you have picked 6 numbers - the first ball drawn by the National Lottery machine, just has to match one of your chosen numbers as the order in which they are selected doesn’t matter. The chances of the first ball being drawn matching any of the 6 numbers on your ticket is therefore 49 divided by 6.

For the second drawn number, there are now only a maximum of 48 balls to select from and you have 5 numbers remaining unmatched numbers on your Lotto ticket. The chances of the second drawn ball matching your Lotto ticket is therefore 48 divided by 5.

For the third winning number you are left with just 47 balls and 4 selections to match it with. This gives you chances of 47 divided by 4. , and so on up to the sixth and final winning number when there are a only 44 balls remaining and only one unmatched number left on your ticket.

If you multiply all of these numbers together, you get:

49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/3 x 45/2 x 44/1 = 13,983,816 (just under 14 million)

So the chances of you winning the UK National Lottery (Lotto) Jackpot if you only buy oneLotto ticket for a particular draw is approximately 1 in 14,000,000.

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What Are The Odds Of Winning Any Of The Other Prizes?

With five tiers of prizes in the Lotto game, you do not have to win the jackpot to receive a cash prize - matching 3 numbers, 4 numbers, 5 numbers or 5 numbers plus the bonus ball,  would result in you winning a prize. The following are the odds of winning one of the lower tier prizes in the UK National Lottery Lotto game:

Matching Three Numbers:

Here is the calculation for working out the chance of matching any 3 numbers from the 6 drawn. To calculate these odds we first work out the following:

• The chances of matching the first drawn number: 49 divided by 6  (49 possible balls, divided by 6 chances)
• The chances of matching the second drawn number: 48 divided by 5 (48 possible balls, divided by 5 chances)
• The chances of matching the third drawn number: 47 divided by 4 (47 possible balls, divided by 4 chances)
• The chance of not matching the fourth drawn number: 46 divided by 43 (45 possible balls, divided by the remaining 42 balls that do not match the selection on your ticket)
• The chance of not matching the fifth drawn number: 45 divided by 42 (45 possible balls, divided by the remaining 42 balls that do not match the selection on your ticket)
• The chance of not matching the sixth number drawn: 44/41 (44 possible balls, divided by the remaining 41 balls that do not match the selection on your ticket)

If we multiply all these together, this is what we get:

49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/43 x 45/42 x 44/41 = 1133.119

Depending on the order in which you matched the balls, you have 20 different ways of matching exactly 3 balls. You could match the first second and third balls as in the example shown above, or you could match the third fifth and sixth balls, or any other combination across all 6.

So this is the calculation for working out the odds of matching exactly three numbers:

1133.119/20 (chance of matching 3 balls divided 20 by the number of possible combinations) = 56.65593

This then gives you odds of winning a Lotto prize for matching just three numbers as approximately 1 in 57.

Matching Four Numbers:

Calculating the chances of matching 4 numbers is not dissimilar to the way we worked out the odds of matching 3 numbers, the only difference being that this time we first take the odds of matching 4 numbers and the odds of not matching two numbers. This is how it looks:

49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/3 x 45/43 x 44/42 = 15,485.95

As the total number of combinations possible for matching 4 numbers is 15, We now have to divide this by 15 to get the exact odds:

15,485.95/15 = 1032.397

Therefore your odds of winning a Lotto prize for matching four numbers is approximately 1 in 1032

Matching Five Numbers:

To calculate the chances of matching exactly five numbers is marginally different, because at this point you need to take into account the bonus ball - if you were to also match the bonus ball you would win an even bigger cash prize. To do this we have to multiply the chances of matching five drawn numbers by the chances of not matching the final number or indeed the bonus ball (43/42 - 43 remaining undrawn balls divided by the remaining 42 balls that do not match those on your ticket):

49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/3 x 45/2 x 44/43 x 43/42 = 332948

You then have to divided by the number of possible combinations which is six:

332948/6 = 55491.33

Giving you odds of winning a prize for matching 5 Lotto numbers of approximately 1 in 55,491.

Matching Five Numbers plus the Bonus Ball:

To work out the chances of matching five numbers and the bonus ball, we can use the calculation we used for matching five numbers but we change the bonus ball part. Now we are looking at the chances of matching five of the drawn numbers multiplied by the chances of not matching the sixth and final number multiplied by the chances of matching the bonus ball (43/1 - 43 remaining balls and only one last remaining chance):

49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/3 x 45/2 x 44/43 x 43/1 = 13,983,816

Divided that by the number of possible combinations which is six, the same as matching only 5 balls:

13,983,816/6 = 2,330,636

This gives your odds of winning a Lotto prize for matching 5 numbers + the bonus ball as 1 in 2,330,636.

Matching All Six Numbers For The Jackpot:

As shown at the start, these are 1 in 13,983,816

So What Are The Odds Of Winning One Of The Prizes?

Using these calculations we can also work out the chances of winning any prize in the National Lottery lotto game - approximately 1 in 53.7. In other words, if you were to buy 1 ticket for 57 consecutive Lotto draws, the likely hood is that you will win a prize once out of those 57 attempts. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that when you do win, it will probably only be £10 for matching 3 balls.

Don’t let this put you off through. Read our article on lottery syndicates and find out how you can slash those odds without spending any more money.

Alternatively, join the 1,000’s signing up to Free National Lottery Tickets to get Free Lotto and EuroMillions tickets for all the draws!

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A month’s worth of free lottery tickets for 10 minutes of your time

If you’ve got ten minutes to spare and would like to get yourself a month’s worth of free Lotto and EuroMillions tickets then you should read on.

Firstly, this is a genuine opportunity. Secondly, this really won’t cost you anything other than a bit of time. Here’s how you can do it.

1. If you like watching films then you’ll like this. Netflix have recently launched their TV and film online streaming service in the UK. As part of their launch they have a great FREE TRIAL offer available. All you have to do is sign up and you’ll get a 30 day trial with 5 hours of uninterrupted films or TV shows to watch. If after the trial you’d like to continue with the service, it will cost you £5.99 a month, you will then be able to instantly watch unlimited films and TV episodes streamed over the internet to PS3, Wii, Xbox, PC, Mac, iPad, Apple TV and more!
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So how does doing any of that get me a month’s worth of free lottery tickets I hear you say? Well, the answer is to do them as a member of Free National Lottery tickets. By joining Free National Lottery Tickets and taking up those three offers through their links, you’ll receive 15,000 lottery points which you can convert into Lotto and EuroMillions tickets of your choice.

Don’t delay, join the thousands of other UK residents 16 and over who have already joined and who are getting free lottery tickets for the Lotto and EuroMillions draws every week!

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