Tears and cheers as golf mad Paul wins £5.1MMillion on Lotto

Paul, 47, and his wife Louise, also 47, are making exciting plans for the future, but are determined to keep life as normal as possible. He said, “We’ve both worked hard all our lives, as did our parents before us. This money is absolutely amazing, but we won’t let it change who we are. I’ll still chase a bargain and I definitely won’t be paying £6.50 for a bacon roll at the golf club!”

Paul, who lives in West Lothian with Louise and their 2 sons, was preparing to head off to work when he made the discovery that felt better than a hole in one. He said, “I car share with 2 colleagues, and it was my turn to do the driving. It was about 4:30 in the morning and I was just getting into the car when I had this niggling feeling to check my Lotto Lucky Dip numbers. I checked my ticket and just sat there in shock!

“Now, I’m not an emotional guy but I just burst into tears. I ran back into the house screaming and woke Louise up to tell her. We just couldn’t believe it.”

Louise said, “I got such a fright thinking something was wrong, but he was shouting something about winning the lottery. At first I thought it was £5,000 and tried to go back to sleep. But obviously that didn’t happen!”

Paul continued, “As I was the designated driver that day I still had to go and pick up the guys for work. It was so hard to keep it to myself!”

Paul is a big fan of cars as well as golf and has his sights set on a Porsche. Louise loves to travel and would like to take her sons to New York when restrictions allow. A family holiday to Florida is also on the cards.

Louise said, “We actually got married at Gretna Green in 2015. My mum and the boys were with us as we were travelling down to the Blackpool Air Show. We stopped for coffee and just decided to do it then and there. I was wearing jeans! As the only daughter, my mum wasn’t happy! She softened a bit when we took her to Florida with us though, so I definitely want to create more memories like that.”

Paul has played various National Lottery games since he was a young man and usually has a plan for choosing his numbers. On this occasion, a last-minute Lotto Lucky Dip proved to be the winning ticket.

He said, “Normally I am quite organised with my playing but on this occasion I must’ve been rushing about too much, probably taking 1 of the kids to an activity! I ended up just grabbing 3 Lucky Dips. I can tell you, the winning Lotto ticket did not leave my side for a week!”

10th August 2021