Dinner 'Ladies' Scoop Lottery Jackpot

A syndicate of five 'dinner ladies' from Brighton have banked a jackpot of £2,147,580 in the Lotto draw on Saturday 29 December. The four ladies and one gentleman who work at Balfour Primary are still reeling from the fabulous start to 2013 and are sure the win will be truly life-changing.

Hear excerpts from the Press Conference

The syndicate of work colleagues came together around 18 months ago and have been playing each Wednesday and Saturday using a set of numbers chosen by each of the syndicate members. Coris Bondsfield, 46,  would buy the ticket for the group at a local National Lottery retailer and check the previous week results in her local paper. The day lady luck was smiling down on the syndicate, she swapped the weekly routine to discover the life-changing win.
 
She revealed, "Bizarrely I don't normally check the numbers until I get the local paper each week, but for this draw I was tidying up some paperwork while my son was doing his homework. Amongst the recycling and pizza offers I found the play slips and decided to check them there and then. I checked the two lines I play with my husband but there was nothing, then the slip with three lines on, again nothing but when I started on the final slip the numbers just kept coming.  I wrote the numbers down in numerical order and saw 3 matched, then 4, then 5. When it started to dawn on me what was happening, I had to ask my son to read them all back to me. We both sat there completely stunned until I found my voice again and simply said, 'we've won'."
 
Coris revealed she very nearly did not buy the ticket because it was the school holidays!

It all became a bit of a blur for Coris after that as she called her syndicate colleagues and shared the good news with her husband.  She continued, "I called Carol, my manager and one of the syndicate. She'd been ill with a terrible bout of flu and couldn't understand why I had called her until a few minutes into the call I told her we had won. I had no idea how much it was at this point and she thought I was kidding.  When I then called Camelot I was still in a state of shock and said to the advisor, 'we have done it', it was an amazing feeling."
 
The syndicate, who are a tightknit group of friends, all re-grouped at Coris' house to celebrate the win over a bottle of champagne.  And when the happy group disbanded, Coris and her family had a celebratory meal at one of the Brighton Marina restaurants.
 
The syndicate of five, who each banked a very healthy £429,516 to kick start 2013, are undecided regarding their next steps. As one member said; "Leaving the children at the school will be hard so maybe we will continue to be Lotto winning dinner ladies!"
 
The winning ticket was bought in the Sainsbury's on New England Street, Brighton. The winning number on Saturday 29 December 2012 were 6, 8, 31, 37, 40 and 48.

Hear excerpts from the Press Conference

Lottery Dinner 'Ladies'