I won £1million jackpot but almost lost it all with touch of a button – my granddaughter’s plea saved our cash
A MAN has revealed he won a £1million jackpot but he almost lost it all with a touch of a button.
William Mullarkey and wife Catherinette, of Coventry, were on the verge of losing the whopping cash after a huge mistake.
William, also known as Bill, was moments away from deleting an email announcing he had won £1million at the The National Lottery Euro Millions Millionaire Maker.
But his luck turned around when his granddaughter insisted he click on the email – and he discovered the life-changing win.
The couple’s twist of fate started while they were on holidays in St Lucia, in the Caribbean on June 27, 2017.
Bill noticed the email from lottery agency Camelot but only checked it when he got back to the UK nearly a month later.
After realising they had won the eye-watering sum, the couple started “screaming and dancing” around their living room.
At the time, the shocked winner said: “We couldn’t believe it when we saw a message come up to say ‘Congratulations, you’re a winner’ and couldn’t take in the figure that came up on the screen.
“I spoke to a young lady on the phone and then waited for a few minutes, which felt like forever, and then she said we had won £1 million.
“At that moment there was such excitement in the house and lots of screaming.
“We celebrated with a nice cup of tea and I didn’t sleep all night, it just wouldn’t sink in.”
The lovebirds, who have been married for 25 years, are now debt-free and plan to splash the cash on a second home in the Caribbean.
‘MIND-BLOWING’
The 57-year-old added: “It is completely life-changing and what I can’t get my head around is that we’re now debt-free.
“I buy a ticket every week online, you can’t forget to buy it that way.
“We can clear the mortgage and plan to resettle in St Lucia for part of the year and keep a home in Coventry too.
“You buy a lottery ticket and you dream what it would be like to win but for this to happen to us is just completely mind-blowing.”
The millionaires also planned to support their 26-year-old nephew, who became paralysed after a bike accident.
They intended to finance changes to his home and buy an adapted car to enhance his daily life.
Bill is a caterer at a Sainsbury’s call centre with his wife – whom he met while working at a hotel.
He added: “We always wanted to build in St Lucia but we came here for a holiday in 2002.
“In two weeks she got on well with my family and we stayed because she wanted to see some snow.
“We didn’t really see any, but maybe I can take her to the Alps now.
“Messiah is a very upbeat person and the money he can have now will be life changing for him.”
It comes as a man revealed his sister scooped £61million in the EuroMillions – but hasn’t given him a single penny.
In a turn of fortune, winner Debbie Nuttall has been embroiled in a long-standing family dispute with her estranged brother Glen.
HOW TO WIN ON THE LOTTERY
EARLIER this year, math experts David Cushing and David Stewart worked out a way to guarantee they could win lottery money.
The mathematicians based their theory on the UK lottery game called Lotto, which involves choosing six random numbers from 1 to 59.
Their theory can technically be applied to other similar lottery games around the world.
This may seem life-changing but the win won’t necessarily be big every time.
Players select six different numbers between 1 and 59.
They can win a prize if they match at least two of the six drawn numbers.
The experts devised a sequence of numbers which meant 27 tickets would guarantee a cash prize, according to their research.
The study stated: “The minimum number of tickets of size six which are needed to match at least two balls on any draw of size six is precisely 27.”
Any less than 27 tickets could result in a loss.
Dr Stewart explained: “Fundamentally there is a tension which comes from the fact that there are only 156 entries on 26 tickets.
“This means a lot of numbers can’t appear a lot of times.
“Eventually you see that you’ll be able to find six numbers that don’t appear on any ticket together.
“In graph theory terms, we end up proving the existence of an independent set of size six.”
