Bonus Ball Bonanza

A great-grandfather matched five balls plus the bonus ball to land a £151,357 prize in the UK Lotto draw of 11 April. Stanley Miller, who is from Llanrumney in Wales, has four children, ten grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Stanley has played the UK National Lottery ever since it was first launched in November 1994. For this particular draw he had bought his ticket from a local Newsbase store. He found out about his win after asking his daughter Jane to check his lottery numbers on the internet on Thursday morning.

"When Jane started shouting out the numbers to me, I was only thinking about the syndicate numbers that I play with at work, having completely forgotten about my own numbers," Stanley said. "I suddenly realised that the numbers she was reeling off were very familiar and were in fact my own numbers. I was absolutely speechless."

Stanley's win is a great stroke of luck because his wife Margaret is about to retire from her job at the local Asda supermarket, and retirement these days isn't cheap. "Margaret was on the phone to everyone we knew straight away - she was so excited," Stanley said.

Stanley, who has worked for Cardiff Truck Centre for 21 years, is already semi-retired, but he says he won't be giving up work himself. So what exactly is he planning to do with his bonus ball bonanza?

"We will definitely spoil the grandchildren with the money," he said, "but we also want to go on a few extra holidays. I'd love to go on a cruise, but we might also look at buying a place out in Cyprus, a place we both love."

On the same 11 April draw, four other players also matched five balls plus the bonus ball to win £151,357 each. The jackpot of £2,459,554 was won by a single ticket-holder who has not yet been named.

- 26/4/07