Sale Syndicate Success
Last Updated: Friday 25th September 2020, 15:18
A lottery syndicate in Sale, Trafford, won a £785,425 share of the Lotto jackpot on 5 December, 2007, but didn’t discover the win until a couple of weeks later. Stephen Skinkis, who leads the syndicate of workers at his fencing company, didn’t even think about checking their numbers until an unexpected conversation prompted him.
“I was on my way into work when I bumped into a lad who works nearby,” Stephen said. “He said his friend had won some money on the lottery so that reminded me I hadn’t checked my tickets.”
Stephen has a home office, so he decided to head back home and check his numbers online. He discovered that his syndicate had matched all six main numbers to take down a share of the jackpot worth £785,425, and later said he was so surprised that he almost fell of his chair.
“I shouted to my wife and she thought I was winding her up,” Stephen said. “Then there was a knock at the door and it was a bloke who owed me £130 for some work I had done for him, so I called him in to check the computer and he said ‘yes I had won’ so I told him to keep the money and treat his kids at Christmas.”
Stephen had already planned to take a trip to Australia with his son and brother-in-law, and because the winning ticket had already been sitting in his office for a couple of weeks, he says if he hadn’t discovered the win when he did, it might have gone unnoticed altogether. Prize winners have up to 180 days to come forward to make a claim, and if this deadline is missed, the money is forfeited and goes to a fund for good causes instead.
Fortunately, that isn’t how things worked out, and as a result Stephen and his fellow syndicate members were able to enjoy a rather special Christmas. Stephen says he intends to buy a new car for his father and treat his children and grandchildren.
John Lovesay, who belongs to the syndicate, said: “I couldn’t believe it when Stephen called me, I just thought he was winding me up, I wasn’t expecting Santa to bring me a £157,000 bonus this year!”