Care Assistant Celebrates
Last Updated: Thursday 22nd November 2018, 14:58
Winning a lottery jackpot worth more than £1 million has given a care assistant the best possible start to 2008. Karen Bottrill, a care assistant at Markfield Court Care Home in Leicestershire, matched all six Lotto numbers on 29 December, 2007, so she was technically a millionairess at the end of last year. However, she didn’t check her numbers until 3 January, 2008 because she had already won £1,000 in November by matching five Lotto numbers, and she wasn’t expecting lottery lightning to strike twice quite so soon.
“After winning £1,000 back in November I thought lady luck wouldn’t strike again,” Karen said. “But I remembered I had a ticket for the Saturday draw between Christmas and New Year and thought I’d check the numbers before going to the shops. I put Ceefax on and was looking at the numbers and said out loud to my daughter, ‘I’ve got one, two, three, four numbers… oh my goodness, five numbers,’ then when I realised I had all six we both just squealed with delight. I was shaking so much my daughter Donna had to call Camelot and they confirmed everything.”
Karen has been playing the UK National Lottery ever since it was first launched in November 1994. Unlike some players who like to enter the same numbers week after week, Karen’s approach is to always buy a Lucky Dip or choose her own numbers at random. It was her daughter’s random selection that scooped the £1,000 prize in November, and a Lucky Dip ticket bought at her local Morrisons store that help her win the jackpot at the end of December. As you’d expect, Karen’s double success left her in a bit of a spin.
“It’s all a bit of a blur at the moment,” she said. “I was chuffed to bits with the £1,000 win and it made for a great Christmas, but for some reason someone smiled down on me again. Such a large amount of money will help make my family and I financially secure for the rest of our lives.”