Lotto News

Operation Lottery

When retired Wallasey taxi-driver Tony Dodd found out he'd won £2,438,155 from the National Lottery Jackpot, he knew straight away what to spend it on-operations for new knees for him and wife Greta.

The couple also plan to buy a new house and enjoy their retirement, whilst still staying in Wallasey. They did not check their ticket until the Monday after the draw, and it took quite a while for the good news to sink in that their regular numbers of 3,10,21,25,29 and 49 for the draw on 21st July had won a lot of money.

Meanwhile, on the south coast in Eastbourne Diane Robson who works in a bridal shop, was looking forward to her niece's up-coming wedding. Now, she and all the family will be able to celebrate in style as Diane was one of three National Lottery Jackpot winners of £2,438,155 from the 21st July draw.

After the wedding Diane is planning on buying a new Peugeot Cabriolet car, and look for a new home in Eastbourne where she has lived all her life. Diane's ticket was bought as a Lucky Dip, so she had to check and re-check her ticket before believing she was a National Lottery Jackpot Winner.

29 July2007.

Sevens Were lucky for some

On an auspicious date, 07/07/07 which was the 7th day of the 7th month of the year 2007, three lucky winners each won £1,655,605 jackpots in the Lotto draw. The numbers they played to win were 16,22,28,30,33,35, (not a seven anywhere!)

Annie Owens was one lucky National Lottery Jackpot millionaire, who bought herself a ticket after work to cheer herself up. She's a factory worker from Swansea and women's rugby player who now plans to buy her team a new strip and take them away for a weekend.

Annie had read three different horoscopes in the previous week which said her finances were about to take a turn for the better, so she's glad she felt lucky and bought herself the Lucky Dip ticket. Next on her 'must buy' list is a flashy new car. At the same time in Londonderry, Denis Doherty was celebrating his lucky win and new 'Millionaire' status. When he'd been waiting at the Spa, Trench Road to buy his weekly ticket, a child in the queue behind him was screaming for sweets, so Denis quickly selected six random numbers for his ticket and left the shop!

He and wife Patricia were able to share the good news of their win with their adult daughters and only have one item on the wish list at the moment, an electric tin opener. Mobile Hairdresser Mandy Williams from Honiton plans to take a few luxury holidays with her winnings, to New York and China to start with. They will also be investing in property and buying their adult daughters a car each. Their lucky ticket was bought whilst they were away in Cornwall

24 July 2007.

Three's Lucky for Some

Winning the National Lottery Jackpot must be an incredible feeling, but it's remarkable what variation there is in the amount Jackpot winners actually get. On Wednesday June 27th Marcus Lewis was one of three lucky winners of the National Lottery Jackpot receiving a cheque for £891,682. Two weeks earlier Colin and Maureen Darwood were also one of three lucky National Lottery Jackpot winners for the draw on Saturday 16 June, and their winnings were for £1,633,505.

Mind you, the £891,682 that 41 year old Liverpool fan Marcus Lewis won will do him just fine. His life will change forever, not in the least because he'll be buying a Liverpool FC season ticket! His wife and four children are to be catered for; plans include organization of the house and buying a Mini Cooper.

Marcus only found out he'd won the Nation Lottery when he took his ticket into the shop to be checked, it was a Lucky Dip that he'd bought at the Spar in Wrexham with the winning numbers 7,13,23,40,41, 48.

Grimsby couple Maureen and Colin Darwood had only just celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary when they found out they were National Lottery Jackpot millionaires. First on the list of 'must buys' is a family trip to Orlando for the lucky couple, their four children and 12 grandchildren. Then when they are back they will be looking for that new car and a dream house. The couple checked their numbers on Teletext and rechecked as they couldn't believe they'd won.

They even called one of their sons for conformation that they did really have the winning numbers 8,17,33,41,43,45. The Darwoods are the fourth millionaires to be created in Grimsby courtesy of the lottery. Roy Gibney won £7.5m in 1998, Jacqueline King won £14m also in 1998 and Steve Appleby won £3m in April this year. As the UK lottery has been runnin£1 million cash explosion Scratch card game .

12 July 2007.

Costcutter Lucky Dip

Not many of us can claim to be National Lottery Jackpot millionaires, and even fewer of us work in the shop where we bought our winning ticket! Neil Murray from Banchory, Aberdeen works at the Costcutter store in Cults, Aberdeen and for the Wednesday 6 June draw he bought himself a Lucky Dip ticket.

While the shop was quite on the Thursday he printed off the winning numbers to check his ticket. When he realised he'd checked off all six numbers he had to ask his boss to re-check for him out of disbelief. But the numbers 7,21,22,28,37 and 40 on the Lucky Dip ticket were correct and as a result, Neil aged 27 and wife Jennifer aged 24 are £4,018,314 richer after two tickets won the jackpot pot of over £8million that night.

Even though the money is in the bank, Neil is still in shock. But the couple do have some plans. Like a new dream house with plenty of space for his wife's passion for horses. Next on the wish list may be a trip to America or Australia, and of course a new car, and then maybe they will start a family.

But all these decisions are made a lot easier when you've a million or four in the bank!

18 June 2007.

Chequered Flag

Michael Fox, aged 64 has been a lifelong Grand Prix fan, and now instead of watching the chequered flag on TV he will be able to see it live. Having bought his ticket for the 30 May draw at his local Londis Store in Blyth, Northumberland Michael now has a National Lottery Jackpot winning of £2,745,415 sitting at ease in his bank account.

He was at home on the Wednesday when the draw was made, and counted as the winning numbers dropped out of the machine. After four balls he thought he'd won a nice sum, but by the time all six popped out he was in astonishment and kept double checking. With a large closely knit family of five children and 14 grandchildren Michael will be able to share his lucky win. But not before he's bought a new house, a new Volvo car and visited a Grand prix.or two As the UK lottery has been runnin£1 million cash explosion Scratch card game

13 June 2007.

Consistency wins

As the UK lottery has been running for nearly 13 years, many of us play the same numbers each week and know them off by heart. If we were sat watching the Lotto draw and we saw 'our' numbers drop out of the machine, one by one, until all six were lined up, we'd know we were lottery jackpot winners. And that's exactly what happened to Joanne Gilbert, from Abertillery in Gwent.

She was on holiday in her caravan in Weston-Super-Mare, with her family including grandson Rhys who had just gone to bed. Turning on the TV the Lotto draw for Saturday 28 April was being made, and as Joanne buys a ticket with the same numbers on each week (11,17,24,28,41,47) she knew that these were her lucky numbers. But still not believing that she had the winning ticket, Joanne went next door to a friend's caravan, and they all sat looking at the ticket in disbelief. Now, Joanne knows it is true and that she is £1,146,742 better off than in her job as a laundry assistant at Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital, where she has worked for 23 years. First on the shopping list is a trip to Disneyland in America for all the family.

06 May 2007.

Easter Jackpot joy

Two months ago 43 year old Jennifer Southall and her three children were living in a homeless hostel having been forced to sell their home. Now she's won the entire Easter £8,372,751 jackpot and plans to buy a huge house, and maybe another one in Spain. Her win was a Lucky Dip ticket with the numbers 23,24,30,31,33,37 and it was the Easter Saturday 7 April draw, but it was only when Jennifer checked her ticket six days later at Tesco that the assistant told her she'd won a lot of money.

The first thing the new multi-millionaire did was hand in her notice at her job at Cineworld, Newport where she'd been earning £5.85 and hour, and then the family will move out of their rented council house on the Ringland Estate. So what do her three teenage children Lauren (19), Kyle (17) and Jamie (14) think?

Well apparently they haven't stopped smiling, and now they know that whereas money used to be an issue, they no longer have to worry. And their mother won't be complaining about the noise from their drum playing, as she'll be buying a house big enough to be well away from the noise. Having bought the boys an Xbox, Jenny is now looking to do so many things that she has never done. Like take driving lessons, buy a new red car, get a passport, and go on a plane. But before all that she went on a shopping trip in Newport with her mum and sister, spending more money in a single day than she ever could have imagined possible. The next shopping trip will probably be in New York.

14 April 2007.

A true story

Kerri Cartwright (aged 28) had a dream about winning the lottery, but when she told her boss he just laughed and said "How nice, now get back to work!" A week later Kerri won £2,543,691 from the Wednesday 24 January Lotto draw with the numbers 2,8,10,31,46,48 bought on a lucky dip ticket at Tesco in Greenock.

Kerri works part-time at Port Glasgow Golf Club whilst studying for an HNC in Administration and IT at James Watt College, and looking after three-year old daughter Stephani. In fact the only reason she bought her lottery ticket was because Stephani wanted a drink so they popped into Tesco.

When the draw was made Kerri typed them into her mobile to check against her ticket but didn't actually get round to doing it until she was in the canteen at college the next day. Like many winners Kerri was ecstatic at getting four numbers, then she realised it was five then six.

To make sure she gave her ticket and the phone to her friend Jo, to double check. Jo just though Kerri was playing a practical joke as she saw straight away that the six numbers on the phone matched the lottery ticket. Once she was sure she had won, first stop was to Kerri's mums shop to double check again, and then they all started dancing round to celebrate.

Now the real shopping list starts with a family holiday to Disneyworld and a sports car high on the list.

Retired groundsman Bryan Crook (aged 65), from Stroud won £2,482,376 on Lotto to see out 2006 in style from the Saturday 30 December draw with the numbers 1,2,7,11,37,45. Bryan says he is still in a state of shock as are the rest of his family, but plans are underway for him and his partner Janice to buy a new bungalow, and a caravan in their favourite seaside resort of Burnham. The couple have been buying their tickets from the same Post Office in Stroud, using the same numbers, based on family and friends birthdays, since the lottery started.

01 Febuary 2007.

Lottery charity sold

The play monday lottery, the leading lottery game that was devised for the specific purpose of raising more money for charity, has been sold by Chariot, the company which created it.

Chariot was formed in 2003 for the express purpose of making the monday lottery concept a reality. And what exactly was that concept? Simply to help the aforementioned charities to raise, "much needed funds for their work without the need for time consuming application processes or red tape." Chariot also wanted to give the play monday lottery players a good deal.

They did this by removing the rollover element found in many lottery games and structuring things so that players would get, "much better odds of winning a jackpot, a jackpot winner every week, better smaller prizes and more of a player's pound going to charity than on the National Lottery." Apart from those key differences, the logistics of playing the monday lottery game would be familiar to any National Lottery enthusiast. Players are required to pick 6 lottery numbers from a possible 49, numbers are drawn at random by computer every Monday night and prizes are paid out to players who match 3, 4, 5 or - to win the jackpot - all 6 numbers.

The monday lottery game was sold to NetPlay TV, a company specialising in interactive TV gaming. Chariot said that they decided to sell the game to NetPlay TV because they were, "unable to continue funding the development and marketing of the game." They also commented that, "Chariot sold the game to ensure the future of monday in the interest of players and the charities they support."

Despite the fact that the monday lottery is now being run by NetPlay TV, Chariot have said that players won't notice a difference in the game itself. "The lottery continues just as before," they said in an official statement. "This has no impact on this week's or future draws. If you have set up a subscription play this will carry on as before. Any future play is also valid. In fact you won't see anything different at all."

20 January 2007.

Not a lucky dip

It's every National lottery player's nightmare. You play the same Lotto numbers for years on the lottery, and then one draw you don't and those numbers win the jackpot. Aaagh! But it could be worse, your Lotto ticket could be one bought on behalf of a syndicate, so not only have you lost out, but all your friends and colleagues have as well.

And that is just what happened to a syndicate of 30 workers in Belgium. The members live and work in Mouscron, a town south-west of capital Brussels and for weeks they had played the same lotto numbers on the Euromillions lottery. So when members saw the draw on Friday night (8/12/06) with their numbers being the jackpot winners, they started calling round each other to spread the good news. One member though, knew otherwise, as she'd bought the ticket that week and knew that the machine had selected the numbers as a Lucky Dip, so the group were not the winners they thought they were. The ticket buyer, owner of the town's bookshop opposite the Café Fraternelle is now keeping a very low profile as some of the members state that they are not sure they will ever speak to her again.

The jackpot stood at Euros 27million (£18,265,582) on this fateful Friday, which would have meant nearly Euros 900,000 (£608,000) for each member, but as it is, no one in Europe claimed the jackpot.

The Belgian syndicate have instructed lawyers to try and claim something for the group in the name of 'Christmas Justice'. The winning numbers were 16,17,18, 36, 47 and Lucky Stars 1,2, and the Euromillions Jackpot for 15 December now stands at £26 million (Euros 39 million).

12 December 2006.

Labour secures employment

The Government's Culture secretary has been accused by the opposition of appointing Labour supporters to the board of the Big Lottery Fund, and thereby ensuring that Lottery money is used to support projects endorsed by the Labour party.

When the names of the people on the Big Lottery Fund board were made public in 2004 their political party affiliation was not on the Board Member's declaration of interests. The interim board did have 17 members, but that has now shrunk to 12, with five being members of the Labour party. The other seven are from all walks of life, and claim no political party affiliation, but that hasn't stopped Ed Vaizey, the shadow Arts Minister, from stating that membership of the Labour party seems to be a pre-requisite for finding a job on a government-sponsored quango.

But who can blame them? For eight days work a month Big Lottery Fund members can claim £24,000 a year for working eight days a month, or £208 per day for two or three days work a month. The Big Lottery Fund has about £630 million a year to distribute and has to "take account of " the views of the Government's Culture Secretary.

In May the Government scrapped plans to use Lottery money for public services, rather than good causes, when they threw out a request from the Culture Department that the Big Lottery Fund should comply with directions from the culture secretary. At the moment the Culture Secretary is Tessa Jowell and she is no stranger to jibes from the shadow bench accusing her of cronyism.

The Conservatives are also not happy with recent lottery funding for projects such as IT Training for teachers (£238 million) or a pilot study giving Free Fruit for Schoolchildren (£42 million). So, if you fancy a well-paid job e.g. Chief Executive of Ofcom (salary £440,000) or Chairman of Sport England (part time at £32,000), join the Labour party.

07 December 2006.

Lotto lovelies

The Sunday Mirror newspaper reports that five female Lottery millionairesses have taken all their clothes off to raise money for charity. The lucky lotto recipient of the money is Leukaemia Research and the donation was made, as the National Lottery looks set to make its 2000th millionaire since the game started back in November 1994.

The five ladies who modelled have all won hugs sums of money, and have become firm friends having met through a 'big winners' group. The photos show all five in various stages of undress.

Like Louise Allen, from Essex who with her husband won £13,861,061 in 2000. Now a mother of two she says the photo will be with her when she's old and wrinkly to remind her of how she used to look.

Barbara Derry won £2,355,757 in 2000 and now has her own florists. She's not sure whether her teenage son will be proud or horrified, but either way she's glad she's bared all for such a worthy charity.

Sarah Cockings won £3,045,705 as a 21 year old in 2004, but now she's making sure all her family look good by paying for them to have cosmetic surgery.

Sarah says that winning the lottery has given her extra confidence, and she would never have had the nerve to pose naked before.

Geraldine Bradley owes her win to her Grandfather Bob, who won £3,570,063 this year and gave it to his relatives. She's now revamping her hairdressing salon and plans to proudly display the photo on the wall when the salon reopens.

Julie Jeffery won £1,038,997 in 2002 and says that winning the lottery has let her do so many things she never would have done. Posing naked is one of them, and something she has no regrets about, unlike her teenage children who pleaded with her not too. She's now wondering what her work mates at the Watford fire station will be saying.

All the winners wanted to show that they are like everyone else, with wrinkles and creases, but still having a good time. They will all be present at a big birthday bash planned by Camelot for the weekend of 8/9 December, when it will be the biggest gathering ever of UK Lottery millionaires.

04 December 2006.

Jobless Lotto Euromillions millionaire

Currently unemployed, Bob was a pipemaker by trade and although he says Falkirk is a nice place to live, and they have lovely neighbours, with the fortune they've won there is no way they are going to stay put for the rest of their lives.

The third of seven UK Euromillions Rolldown winners of £6.75million has come forward but has opted for no publicity. It seems that this winner's friends will not notice a change in her lifestyle, as reportedly she is already a millionaire, and paid the cheque straight into her bank account at the exclusive private London bank of Coutts.

A Ludlow man, Adam Griffiths has won the £250,000 Thunderball jackpot in the UK National Lottery draw from Saturday 18 November 2006, along with two other £250,000 winners. Like many previous lottery winners, Adam checked his numbers against Teletext, and thought he'd won a small prize by matching 4 numbers. It was a friend who on checking the ticket for him found he'd matched all five (5,12,14,15,28), plus the Thunderball (14)!

When he phoned to tell his parents, his dad thought he was messing about, but his mum's advice was to put the ticket in a safe. So far, Adam has bought friends a drink and an all-the-trimmings night out, and has his eye on a new Audi TT car. But before that, his five-year-old daughter Katie is to have the Christmas of her dreams.

04 December 2006.

Wigan syndicate wins Euromillions Lotto Rolldown Jackpot draw

It wasn't just millionaires that were created in the £120million Rolldown Euromillions Draw on 17 November 2006, a syndicate of six workmates from Wigan won £68,008.90 for correctly guessing the five main numbers. They were among 29 other winners across Europe for that prize tier. The Wigan-based syndicate only started playing Euromillions five weeks ago when they heard the news of the large rollover jackpots. The £10,148 that each member has won may not mean they can give up the day job, but it does mean some very welcome cash for the members.

Syndicate leader Jim Brenan knew on the Friday night they'd won, but didn't call the others, as it was so late. He plans a trip to Cyprus and some home improvements.

Fellow syndicate member Ken Brown plans to upgrade his car and do some home improvements. He had promised his family a racehorse if he won the lottery, so has made a start with a horseshoe bought specially with his winnings.

Alan Marley will be smiling with his win as he's planning some new teeth!

Overseas the Japan Lottery has announced its biggest win ever. According to Japan Times Online, someone has won 584,156,640 Yen (£2,598,156) on the Big Soccer Lottery for 26 November 2006, beating the previous highest jackpot of 400 million Yen (£1,779,290) won on Loto 6. The biggest prize value available for the Big Soccer Lottery is 600 million Yen (£2,668,317).

Players have a computer-generated Lotto ticket, which randomly tries to predict the results from all of the 14 J1 and J2 football league games. If your Lotto ticket gets the results right, you win!

And in Turkey, the Turkish National Lottery Administration has announced its New Year Jackpot will be 20 million Turkey New Lira (£7,048,792). There will be 2,760,000 winners of prizes, which will range in value from 2 TRY (70p) to the jackpot of 20 million TRY. Tickets priced at 5-20 TRY (£1.76-£7.05) go on sale from 9/12/06.

28 November 2006.

Euromillions rolldown winner emerges

There was no way he could remain anonymous as he checked his ticket in the Crown Inn pub in Heywood, whilst playing dominoes with friends on Friday night. His girlfriend Stella Kelsall runs the Crown Inn, and she made sure the Lotto ticket was securely locked away in the pub's safe. Dean and his mates checked the numbers off in amazement and when he had five they were shouting at the TV for the last number to come up.

First on Dean's to-buy list is a racehorse in memory of his grandfather who died last year. He was keen on horseracing, and often won, but one of the last things he'd said to Dean was that he was sure he'd come into some money. But the first person to benefit from Dean's win was his Dad who had a fantastic 60th birthday party at the pub on Saturday night, so that everyone could celebrate.

At the moment Dean is a season ticket holder at Bury, but he thinks he might upgrade to a box, so his friends can watch as well. And Stella's thoughts are with Christmas, when she's determined that she'll still cook the celebratory lunch, but the pressies under the tree might hold something even more special this year.

Dean is a Factory Foreman for a door manufacturer, and Stella manages the Pub, and they both have declared that they will stay on working. But maybe a holiday to Australia to watch England play in the Ashes can be squeezed in, just to toast the win. If you are wondering if Dean used a system to correctly guess the winning numbers, then no, he did not; he just bought four Lucky Dips, in common with millions of people across Europe last week.

There were seven lucky £6.75m winners in the UK last Friday, five have yet to go public, but the other ticket was held by a syndicate of 33 pie workers based at Palethorpes Pie Factory in Shropshire. With prizes of over £200,000 each, the workers will have a great Christmas even though redundancies are threatened at the factory.

Elsewhere in Europe there are four happy winners in France, three each in Spain and Portugal, Two in Eire and one in Belgium. As you probably know the draw on 17 November was special as if the jackpot was not won (by correctly guessing five numbers and two lucky stars), the value of the Jackpot (£123m) would roll-down to the next level where you had to guess five numbers and only one lucky star. And this is what happened and as a result there were 20 winners.

Now you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but you might like to feel sorry for a syndicate of 36 players that matched the 5 numbers plus one dream number on the 10/11/07 draw and won £479,782, or another syndicate, of 13 players, who'd done the same the week before and won £413,010. If they'd done it in this Lottery draw, on 17/11/06 they'd have won £6.75M!

21 November 2006.

Lucky Euromillions Lotto 7 for the UK

Seven Euromillions players from the UK were among the 20 who shared the £120 million jackpot prize fund on Friday 17 November. The Euromillions had snowballed to £120 million after being rolled over again and again, and Friday's draw still didn't result in any player matching five main number and the two Lucky Star numbers.

But because Euromillions rules don't allow for rollovers to continue beyond the twelfth week without a jackpot winner, the prize fund for the top prize was shared between the second tier winners, who matched five main numbers and one Lucky Star.

There were 20 players who achieved this. 7 were from the UK, 4 from France, 3 from each of Spain and Portugal, 2 from Ireland and 1 from Belgium. Each second tier winner ended up taking home just over £6.7 million, which is more than many national lotteries pay out as a jackpot!

British players had been crossing their fingers and hoping that Lady Luck would smile on them, because both France and Portugal have had more Euromillions jackpot winners than the UK. Whilst a British jackpot was still as elusive as ever on Friday night, the fact that seven UK players walked away from the latest draw as multi-millionaires was sure to have put a smile on many faces. Now that the colossal £120,000,000 jackpot fund has been distributed to players, the Euromillions jackpot has been reset for the draw on Friday 24 November. But that doesn't mean that public interest is will wane by any great degree.

The Euromillions lottery guarantees that the jackpot fund will never be worth less than ?15,000,000, so there is still plenty to play for this week, and still a hope that the elusive first tier jackpot will be won for the first time since August 2006. Country Winners UK 7 France 4 Portugal 3 Spain 3 Ireland 2 Belgium 1 21 November 2006.

National Lottery winning formula

Previously each Lottery syndicate member had randomly chosen a number, though often it was a family birthday or significant date. The new system, introduced four years ago saw all 49 numbers being written on pieces of paper and placed in a box. A syndicate member would then pick out six pieces of paper and these would form the first line on the ticket. These "used" pieces of paper then went into a second box.

This was repeated eight times, using 48 of the 49 available numbers, and the remaining number was used to start a new line by anther syndicate member who then selected five more pieces of paper from the second box. Simple! This continued until 17 lines had been selected (one each for every member of the syndicate) and more importantly it meant that every number from 1-49 had been selected at least twice per ticket, and four numbers were selected three times.

Now checking seventeen National Lottery lines could be a bit tiresome, and a mere human could miss the vital winning combination, so this syndicate set up a computer programme to check their National Lottery lines. This system in itself took a while to perfect, but now they have won, who cares! Of course they could have just had their ticket checked at by the lottery machine, but that wouldn't have been so much fun!

Barry Waterhouse is the syndicate's leader and he says that after 12 long years of playing the lottery it's great that their new system has done the business. They felt that because they were using all the numbers for each draw that they stood a better chance of winning. The syndicate's youngest member plans to buy a Bradford City Football Club season ticket and the city ground was where the syndicate chose to have their publicity photo taken.

One of the syndicate's members received a text on Saturday night telling him the good news, and he now plans to take early retirement from the university, as does another member who will be setting up her own business selling soaps. Saturday 21 October 2006's winning numbers were 15,18,23,31,37,49 and the bonus ball was 38.

21 October 2006

The price of Lotto happiness

We've all heard the saying that money can't buy happiness, but new research from the University of Warwick and Watson Wyatt suggests that a certain amount of money actually can increase our feelings of happiness. Many National lottery players will claim to have instinctively known this for a long time, but what they may not have realised is that you don't need to become a millionaire to feel a difference.

Whilst small sums of tens or hundreds of pounds obviously do little to improve our happiness quotient, you certainly don't need to win a jackpot. The research of Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick and Dr Jonathan Gardner, which will be published in the Journal of Health Economics, shows that medium-sized lottery wins (which covers the range of £1000 to £120,000) can have a long term sustained impact on the overall happiness experience by the winners.

The research goes on to say that after two years, medium-sized lottery winners had an average mental wellbeing GHQ score 1.4 points better than previously. In layman's terms, this means that two years after their win, these medium-prize winners were an impressive 10% happier than those of us who haven't won anything or who have only won very modest prizes. The findings are the fruit of a fourteen year longitudinal study using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which tracks 5,000 British households. One might be forgiven for thinking that any increase in happiness takes place as soon as the win occurs, but the new research shows that this is not the case.

Instead, it takes some time for the happiness-increasing effects of a medium-sized win to "show through" into the daily lives of winners. Commenting on this observation, Economist Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick said: "This delay could be due the short term disruptive effect on one's life of actually winning, but a more plausible explanation of the delay is that initially many windfall lottery funds are saved and spent later." So, the next time you play the National Lottery, don't think that you necessarily need to win the jackpot to become happier. We can all be 10% happier just by winning a medium-sized text lotto prize - and that's a scientific fact! 28

September 2006 .