Tesco staff syndicate scoops £3.6m National Lottery win

A syndicate of 15 Tesco staff have won £3.69 million in the National Lottery

Fifteen Tesco night shift workers are celebrating after their syndicate won more than three million in the National Lottery.

The staff at the Tesco Plymouth Roborough store shared a £3,689,940 jackpot from the Lotto draw of Saturday 19 July.

The staff have played the Saturday Lotto draw since the syndicate was formed in 2010.

Known as the ‘Plymouth Tesco Night Shift’ syndicate, the fifteen have had a number of smaller wins over the last few years, including each winning several hundred pounds at Christmas. However, last weekend’s Jackpot has given each of them a £245,996 windfall.

And nine of the 15 winners who have agreed to go public celebrated their winnings on Wednesday at The Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Plymouth. Here, they discussed what they plan to spend some of their winnings on.

Among the group was the leader of the syndicate, Jackie Beresford, 56, who had asked her daughter to buy the winning syndicate Lotto tickets, because a seagull did its business on her and her family.

“My daughter and her husband and their daughter were at a Christening when a seagull left its mark, so to speak. In my book that’s a sign of good luck to come and I suggested she bought the syndicate tickets – and it came true!” she said.

Jackie – who was widowed earlier this year when her husband, David, of 26 years died of cancer – had also visited a psychic two weeks before the win.

“She told me my husband had one regret, that he had not left me in a better financial situation – but that he had a plan,” she said. “I just know he’s shining down on me and looking after me, and this was his way of doing it.

“I know most of us just haven’t had the time to think about what we’re planning to spend some of the money on, but I know what I will be doing first and that’s paying off my mortgage so I’ll have no more worries on that front. One thing is for certain, by the end of this week my house will be my own.”

All 15 of the syndicate live in the Plymouth area and work together on the 10pm-7am shift at the Tesco Roborough store. The job entails re-stocking shelves overnight for the following day’s trading.

Other syndicate members who went public, included: Sarah Wheatley (46), Mandy Bunker (48), Kay Richards (56), Tina Carpenter (46), Vanessa Rice (47), Alison Lonsdale (45), Sheila Bird (50), and Clare O’Carroll (53).

The group play 15 Lotto lines each Saturday night and it was Clare’s numbers that came up trumps last weekend:  5, 9, 14, 25, 34 and 38.

“We’re a pretty close-knit group and get on really well together and some of us were at work on the night shift when we found out about our win after last Saturday’s draw,” added Jackie.

“I had a call from one of the members to say we’d won the jackpot and I just screamed. I don’t know how we finished that night shift, but we did – with the help of a glass of champagne! I’m just glad the winning ticket is now out of my house. I hid it in a DVD cassette box, but I was terrified I might lose it.”