A local supermarket manager is half a million pounds richer after winning an instant prize on an online game.
Gareth Bradley, age 41, was running a series of job interviews from home when, in a break between calls, he logged on to his online National Lottery account and started to play the online Instant Win Game - Mega Cashword.
He said: "I’d actually gone onto the National Lottery app to play Lotto but decided as there was a little more in the account than I realised, I’d treat myself and play an online Instant Win Game as well. I’d pressed the final letter to be revealed in the game when little Ruby, our springer spaniel puppy, made it very clear she needed to spend a penny. In a situation like that you don’t mess about, so I quickly put the phone down and immediately took her outside.
“Ruby’s penny spent, we came back into the house and as I picked up my phone saw it was flashing £500,000. I just couldn’t work out what had happened, so I logged into my National Lottery account where I saw a balance of £500,000. Turns out, the last letter I pressed was the top prize-winning M!”
Gareth, who was completely shocked, then called his long-term partner Connor Dennis to share the news.
Connor said: "Gareth sounded very shaky as he fought back the tears, saying to me ‘you won’t believe what’s happened’. Given the times we are living through I assumed the worst and that something awful had happened.
"I ran out of the open plan office thinking I needed to find somewhere private to commiserate with him, only to discover I needed somewhere private to let out some cheers of delight, but only after he’d sent me a video of the winning message to prove he wasn’t winding me up!”
The pair plan have no plans to give up work, instead they will set aside a lump sum to pay off their mortgage.
Connor added: "We can’t get our heads around how lucky we are, we’ve only had to pay the mortgage for three months and now have the funds to never have to pay it again.
“We know we’ve been lucky and while we do have a few frivolous plans – a Rolex for me and a Range Rover to replace Gareth’s current Kia – we are not going to waste this luck. We have lots of plans to really make the money work hard so that it’s there for our families in the longer term.”
In other news, just a few weeks ago a local grandmother from Kents Hill won £30,000 on the People's Postcode Lottery.
And just before that, two people from nearby Marston Moretaine each won £50,000 on that same game.
It seems Milton Keynes is the place to be for lottery wins!
