Whatever Happened to the UK’s Biggest Bingo Winners?

Football Boredom, Big Wins and Death!

Over the years we’ve seen some pretty big bingo winners here in the UK, and almost on a weekly basis we’re hearing of £50K winners via the National Bingo game, only the three winners we’re about to reveal, won substantially more than this! Big wins don’t necessarily bring you happiness, but they sure do take the sting out of being poor, but unless you know what you’re doing with all that cash, you could end up back to where you started soon enough! Just a little tip…always seek financial advice when winning a large sum of money, as this reduces your risk of being font page news!

50/50 Leads to Death!

March 2008, Soraya Lowell, a then 38-year-old from Scotland, headed off to her local Club 3000 Bingo hall with her then 68-year-old bingo pal and neighbour Agnes O’Neill. In the few months leading up to the win, Agnes has been terribly ill and with her husband unable to cope, Soraya stepped in to give a helping hand, something she would later go on to tell the national press. To cut a long story short, Soraya called house on top-of-the-shop (90) to bag a platinum jackpot win of more than £1.1million! She knew instantly what to do – split her winnings equally with her pal as she’d always done!

Two months after the win, Agnes tragically died peacefully in her sleep. Soraya had always been a local girl so decided to use some of her £550K by buying her home and an ice-cream van. Just four years later, the Bank of Scotland seized the family home worth £150K and the local council took her and her husband to court for unpaid council tax.

Wicked Welsh Jackpot:

Back to 2008 now, and in the January of that year, another platinum bingo jackpot was won, only this time in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Christine Bradfield went from a shop assistant to a bingo millionairess when calling house on the National Bingo Game! Bagging a life-changing sum of £1.1m at her local Castle Bingo club, the winner did what we often see in situations like this – she split her winnings 50/50 with her sister-in-law. Well, the pair had been splitting their wins over the past 11-years, so it was only right!

What happened to the bingo millionairess? She went back to work! I kid you not, the lucky bingo winner decided to go back to her minimum wage job at a petrol station because she feared she would die of boredom at home spending her fortune! She vowed at the time of her win that the money wouldn’t change her, and she was right! Christine and her husband still live in their terraced home in Caerphilly and still have that fortune in the bank!

Football’s Coming Home?

The timing of this next one is almost too perfect, what with the Euros currently underway! Our next big winner was Lisa Potter from Oxfordshire. In June 2012, tired of her husband’s obsession with Euro 2012, Lisa decided to entertain herself by playing online bingo. With just a fiver in her account she started to play bingo. While her tickets were playing out, she did what most of us do – she hit the slots and boy was she glad when she did! Lisa knew as soon as she saw the jackpot, she had to give it a shot and in just a few spins, she went from football widow to millionairess after landing a jackpot win of £1,364,745.23! It’s 9-years on now and Lisa has done what she told the local news she would do – take care of her children’s futures by looking after her winnings!

If you’d rather not watch wall-to-wall football, the good news is there are plenty of football-widow themed promotions to keep you entertained for the next month or so!