A keen fisherman from Sandbach is celebrating today after reeling in a top catch of £300,000 on The National Lottery’s Jewel Smash Scratchcard.
Graham Potts, 56, had popped into his local One Stop on this way home from work and bought the scratchcard with some spare change which he had in his pocket.
The traffic management engineer, a father of three, waited until he got home before he scratched the card.
He said, “It still all feels a little surreal!
“I saw the number three and just thought I had won £3.00. I then started to see zeros but thought I was just seeing double or had maybe won £300!
“It was at that point I thought I just need to call Camelot to get this straight. I was just checking, checking, double and triple checking! When the lady on the phone said it was a £300,000 prize I couldn’t quite believe it. I just fell silent. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, shout or what to do!”
Graham said he celebrated with a glass of beer before going to bed, conscious he needed to get up for work early the following morning.
Graham added, “I went into work as everything still didn’t feel real.
“I just wanted to get on with the day job and try to keep things normal.”
But Graham said when he got home that night things did start to sink in a little more and he began to plan how he would spend some of his new found fortune.
New fishing equipment is high on the shopping list, together with treating his family, including his two daughters, Megan, 22 and Tiffany, 24 and son Joe, 27.
Graham, who lives in a one bedroom rented flat, says he has no intention of moving but may look to put some money from his win towards buying his flat.
He also plans to buy a new van for his fishing gear!
He continued, “Never did I believe when I walked into the shop on my way home from work that I would become £300k richer.
“You always hope you will win – and I would have been happy with £300.
“You just think the big wins always happen to other people – but not this time – this has happened to ordinary me – and could literally happen to anyone! It really is just totally amazing!”
Graham bought the winning National Lottery Scratchcard at the One Stop in Price Avenue, Sandbach.
The Jewel Smash Scratchcard from The National Lottery has a 1 in 3.70 overall chance of winning a prize. The game costs £3 and prizes range from £3 up to the top prize of £300,000.
By playing any National Lottery game, players generate more than £30M each week for National Lottery-funded projects.
This money helps support everything from the local charity making a difference where you live through to helping our nation’s athletes win medals at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. To date, over £43BN has been raised for National Lottery Good Causes with more than 635,000 individual grants awarded.
Thanks to National Lottery players, over £1.2BN is being used by charities and organisations affected by the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, which includes over £600M in funding support from the National Lottery Community Fund which is being used to help groups best placed to support people and communities through the crisis.
