Lottery Millions for Luton Couple
Last Updated: Thursday 22nd November 2018, 14:53
A couple of National Lottery players from Luton are celebrating after winning a Lotto rollover jackpot worth £10,784,075 on Wednesday 8 April, 2009. Martyn White and his wife Sandra play the lottery online, and they discovered their win as they were making last-minute preparations for a holiday in Italy.
Martyn explains how it happened: “It was Easter Saturday and we were leaving for our flight at lunchtime so I switched on my computer first thing to double check our flights and to see whether there were any delays. Whilst looking I saw there was an email from the National Lottery saying I was a winner but I assumed we had won a tenner again. I thought lovely – that will go in the holiday kitty. I wasn’t going to check but intrigue got the better of me and I logged onto my account.”
What Martyn discovered when he opened the email stopped him in his tracks. “It took me ages to spot the amount and even then I thought the email was wrong - £10.7m was the jackpot prize but how much have I won? Next I checked the winning numbers and recognised them all …it began to dawn on me that it wasn’t a mistake and that we really had won!”
Winning any large Lotto prize takes time to sink in, but when you’re talking about a rollover jackpot worth more than £10.7 million, it takes even longer to accept. That’s why Martyn did what any of us would do in the same situation – he started double-checking and then triple-checking his lottery results. Eventually he accepted that he was indeed the latest Lotto multi-millionaire, but with a trip to Italy just hours away he decided to postpone collecting his cash until after the holiday.
“Some people must think we were mad to still go on holiday but we had booked it a while back and were really looking forward to going away with our friends,” Martyn said. “In a way it was great to have time to think about what the money means for us and our family. We would wake up each morning and think it was just a dream and then we would start giggling again as remembered it was real. If it had been a ticket then we would have probably rushed to the bank and put it into a safety deposit box but as it was online it felt safe and could wait until we came back.”
As well as buying a new home, Martyn and Sandra are going to use some of their new-found wealth to give their two adult children dream weddings this summer. “We were about to take out a bank loan to cover the mounting costs for the kids’ weddings this summer but now we can do them in style with no money worries. It is going to benefit the whole family and be a great summer,” Martyn explained.
Readers who fancy their chances of following in Martyn and Sandra’s footsteps and becoming the next big Lottery winner can buy Lotto tickets online. That’s what our lucky couple from Luton did, and we’re fairly confident that they don’t regret it for a minute!
