Hold tight, you’re best placed to be lucky on the Lottery

It’s all a question of chance, of course, but statistically we are best placed when it comes to stumping up £2 for a draw ticket.

The National Lottery today revealed the luckiest postcodes in the UK as part of its 25th birthday celebrations. A staggering 5,500 millionaires have been made since the lottery launched in 1994, according to the statistics. And of those 168 are from the Birmingham postcode.

While that may still be a small proportion, it officially swings it for the West Midlands as the luckiest region.

There have been many instant millionaires created in our region since the lottery was launched. In the early days, Tipton was seen as one of the luckiest areas, with a national newspaper even offering a weekend mini-break in the town in an attempt to hit the jackpot. The town’s Holness family seemed particularly lucky, with three family members winning big in the first few months of 1995. Alwin Holness won a £2.7 million share of the £11 million jackpot his workplace syndicate scooped. Days later, his cousin Kevin Holness was one of a group of 15 workers at the BTS Monarch Tyre company in Tipton who won £2.4 million. Later that month another un-named relative scooped £2,000 on a lottery scratchcard.

The Palethorpes meat plant in Market Drayton has proved to be something of a lucky workplace, with a workers’ syndicate scooping £6.3 million in 2006, followed by another £303,456 10 years later.

More recently, lucky Wolves season ticket holder Paul Harrington celebrated after netting £300,000 on his second scratchcard win inside a week. Paul Harrington, from Cheslyn Hay, ‘bagged a brace’ with two National Lottery Scratchcard wins in September – including claiming the £300,000 top prize. Just a week earlier, 43-year-old Paul had won £1,000 on the same National Lottery Cashword VIP Scratchcard – black and gold in colour like his favourite football team, having been a season ticket holder for the last five years.

While the West Midlands takes the top spot for players banking a seven-figure sum, some 133 players with a Belfast postcode have scooped a million each. Lottery luck also lives in Glasgow, which takes third place with 125 millionaires made.

Amazing

The statistics by the National Lottery also looked at where players are most likely to win a prize of more than £50,000.

Galashiels, a town in the Scottish borders, has seen the most big winners by local population.

On average, one in every 894 players has banked a big prize since the lottery’s launch, while traditionally lucky Romford in Essex and Cleveland in the north-east of England have seen one in 922 and one in 952 respectively.

Data from the last three years suggests Leicester locals have been in luck recently, climbing the top 10 with 30 millionaires made since September 2016.

Andy Carter, senior winners’ adviser for the National Lottery, said: “We go to every corner of the country to pay out big prizes and make millionaires.

“With on average seven new millionaires made every week, you can be sure we’ll be visiting somewhere close to you very soon.

“Over the last 25 years, The National Lottery has been making amazing things happen.

“Thanks to our National Lottery players, 565,000 Good Cause grants have been given out to projects big and small, that’s the equivalent of 200 life-changing projects in every UK postcode district making a huge impact on communities all over the country.

“On top of this, we have celebrated so many lucky winners who have won life-changing sums of money - here’s to another 25 years of making dreams come true.”