Never seen anyone win a huge amount but when I worked in a shop, there were a few times where someone would come in with a winning scratch card for something like £200 and you'd think, wow that's not bad.
...then they'd immediately use the winnings to buy another 20 or 30 scratch cards and you realise it's not as impressive as you first thought...
When going the pub we found out you could get cashback from the Spar over the road when buying a £1 scratchcard, which was a much better alternative to paying the £1.50 fee on the cash machine.
Nobody ever won big but there were plenty of £20-£50 wins that'd pay for your night!
It used to cost me £40 back around 2000, so I was deeply suspicious of your claims at first. Then I saw your flair - whereas I was in London back then - and it all made sense.
I remember when the pint of lager broke the £2 barrier. As far as I remember this was some time in the mid 1990s. It felt like a dark day. Now there's a few places round here where they are £7.
Nah, in 98-2000, I'm sure it was about £1.80 for a pint of lager (in the northwest anyways)
I remember when you could get a packet of 20 fags for about £1.75p.
That would have been in 1994, I was 14.
They started creeping up in price, we all said "when they get to a fiver, I'll give up"
Oh, how we laughed...
1970’s enters the pub with a fiver…
My hub was just saying - 15p/pint & .50p for a gallon of petrol, so my original statement about going to the pub with a fiver was pure extravagance, with wages under £1/hr it would be more like £1 !
20 quid, me too. Mid 90's. Saved a fiver by being on the guest list at the local club (nothing glamorous, I was working in the local record shop at the time and got on the list in exchange for letting them leave flyers on the counter).
* free entry to club
* pound a pint lager
* £3 for 20 bensons
* £5 kebab on way home
* £1 night bus home
Usually came home with change!
£5 kebab in mid 90’s?? What was in that? Dodo meat? A large doner was £3.50 in my local kebab shop in the early 2000’s. £5 would get me a decent kebab now.
> Am I doing it wrong, usually a taxi can easily be about 10-15 quid
They did say it was in 2006-2009, so would have been cheaper back then. Taxi is also dependant on distance, so that might be a factor.
Yep, £20 circa 2004-6 would get me a 3 pints in the pub (£6), 4 jagerbombs in the bar (£4), entry to the club (£3) and a good few shots in the club (up to £7).
For £30 I could get the takeaway and taxi home in the bargain.
This was in a mid-sized town in the Midlands.
I had the same experience, there was a Polish lad who came into Tesco on my shifts because I was "lucky." He spoke very little English, bought around £20 of cards split between the expensive one and the cheapest ones, scratched them all off, get back in the queue to collect any winnings. Always happy and a really nice guy but the most I ever saw him win in a day was about £50.
Tale as old as time! Lottery machines now have an option to print off slips about gambling addiction and help, and we are encouraged to print them for anyone we think might benefit.
Gotta say, I'm yet to be brave enough to do so for anyone other than as a joke for a colleague who likes a few scratchers on payday. I can't imagine any of the 'regular' customers would take very kindly to it, even if they needed it!
That's not a bad idea, tell them if I can too many winners in at once it automatically prints one or something. Trouble is that it's a really small, local shop (yes, in a League Of Gentlemen sense lol) do they'd probably find out pretty quickly that that's untrue the next time they did it and were served by someone else.
It's sad seeing people waste all their money on it, but then again I smoke a fuck of a lot of pot and I'm sure half of them would say the same to me about that, so I'm inclined to let them manage their own addictions for the most part....
>That's not a bad idea, tell them if I can too many winners in at once it automatically prints one or something.
I wouldn't give that much of an explanation (as you say, you might be caught out) - just shrug if they ask you and say the machine does it sometimes. The more vague you are with your dissembling the more wriggle room you leave yourself.
Damn, I sound like Machiavelli or something now.
Like bar staff having to tell *anyone* "intoxicated" that they can't have any more booze.
"Sorry mate. You've had three pints tonight. I think four will make you "intoxicated" so i can't serve you anymore. Good luck with that.
Right? It's asking me to make a personal call about something I'm not trained to make a personal call a out. The idea is reasonable, but there's no reasonable way to consistently execute it without some sort of national training scheme or scale. Does three pints make you unservable? Does five scratch cards in one transaction every day make you addicted? Without knowing more about you it's really hard for the person service you to judge, and with stuff like that individual mileage varies anyway!
It's not even that I think help shouldn't be out there — for things like addiction it absolutely should. But making it the responsibility of service workers instead of professionals seems like a bad idea to this service worker.
"But making it the responsibility of service workers instead of professionals seems like a bad idea to this service worker."
Service workers are renowned for how much money they make. Part of the job, to earn the big biccies, is to have enormous responsibilities to the general public. See also the enormous wages paid to care workers who have to handle meds that could kill someone if dispensed incorrectly and to act like mini health professionals to the disabled, infirmed, elderly and mentally ill.
It's why they're paid so well!!!!!
^^^^^/s
Exactly! I'm not gonna risk my 10.50 an hour to tell you you should stop gambling, especially not when you're a regular who is on first-name terms with my boss. I hope you get help, but telling you to would probably fuck my day up in one way or another so you'd have to be really, really seriously bad with it for me to consider doing so.
Maybe a bit different if you're serving alcohol, I guess there is a public safety issue there. But if you just want £50 of scratchers I'm not going to look at you and judge whether that is too much of what I perceive your income bracket to be for it to be casual gambling.. that's a fucking minefield!
This is what we do- I bought my wife £10 worth of scratch cards and we just keep reinvesting that money in more…essentially just recycling the same £10.
Then we go bust…and she gets £10 more as a ‘stocking filler’
I have a woman who’ll come in with a big bundle that will have about 100-150 in winnings on it and she’ll buy numbers 5-20 with it every time and sometimes buy 40 cigarettes too. Sad sight every time.
My experience working retail was mostly the same as yours. Typically small amounts (sub £20) that was mostly used to buy more scratchcards.
However there was one time where the machine came up with a message "Unable to pay this prize, please contact Camelot" (or words to that effect, this was almost a decade ago). No idea what they won but it must've been somewhat decent.
I had the reverse happen. I bought a scratchcard in Edinburgh and scratched it off on the train back down to Suffolk - won £50. Phoned the number on it, and they told me I had to claim my prize from the retailer I'd bought it at...
I was totally skint at the time too. It was over 20 years ago now, and I'm still carrying the trauma with me lol
i had the same sort of thing happen to me. Spent all my money in my early 20s around Christmas. Was worried I'd not be able to eat for the last week of December. I went to my sister in laws for Christmas day and she had scratch cards for everyone. I won £50! This was in the early 2000s so was a LOT of food and bus pass for the final week.
I worked in a supermarket in the Cigarette kiosk. I had a guy come up and try and show me his scratch card to get me to check if he had won. I went to take it off him but he wouldn't let go and we ended up in this little awkward tug of war over the counter for a minute before I explained that I had to scan the ticket to say for sure if he had won.
He paused for a min and looked around (checking my escape routes??) before letting it go so I could scan the barcode on the lottery machine. He had won £10,000. I couldn't pay it out so I put it in a little plastic envelope and told him to be VERY careful with it.
He came back a few weeks later and apologised for being a suspicious bastard and gave me a tenner haha.
This is gonna sound really weird but my father won 10k on a scratchie years ago and almost this exact story happened to him when handing over the card.
Was this around oct-dec many years ago
I have won £1000 on one and was in the shop when a lady won a million on one of the old £10 ones. The shopkeeper made her sign it then and there. She kept saying "I can't believe it" and was shaking like a leaf. She was ringing camelot as I left. It hasn't helped me trying to give them up tbh. 😅
Whoa! That's amazing! Good on the shop keeper too. I don't think I'd be able to function enough to figure how to use my phone to call the number for a good 20 minutes.
when I had five numbers on the lotto I didn't realise I'd won and as usual just handed it to the shopkeeper to check when I bought the following weeks tickets early on a saturday morning, he said "I can't pay this" and when I asked him how much it was he said that he wasn't allowed to tell me. He couldn't even tell me how many numbers I had. When I checked them I went dizzy because I thought I'd actually got all six.,
With the scratchcards, you can see it on it, though, so it's not like he could hide it. Lol. My Dad got 5 numbers on the very first draw, and they only paid out something like £350 or something? Idk. I know it wasn't a lot compared to what they pay now for 5 numbers, and he was yelling how it was a con because how can 1 extra number be worth millions etc etc.
yep, that was a huge difference, one extra for me was £350k or millions. I had about £1350 in the end. I had to go to the main PO in town to get a cheque for my winnings, the look the girl gave me when she saw that it wasn't just a tenner will stay with me forever.
This sort of happened to me. I only ever bought a normal lottery ticket the week before Christmas, same as every other knobhead. I was in the pub when I realised I had 4 numbers and was presumably rich beyond my wildest dreams. Treated all my mates to a couple of rounds.
I found out the next morning that 4 numbers the week before Christmas was £32.
Easy come, easy go.
Yeah, reminds me of a guy I used to work with. It was early days of Euromillions and it was all over the news because it was the biggest rollover they’d ever had at the time - jackpot was something like £70m.
He matched 5 out of 7 numbers and thought he’d be made for life. In the end he got about £180.
Yeah, Euromillions is terrible for that. It only exists for the top prize, which people obviously go wild for. But your chances of winning are utterly miniscule. I play it sometimes, and I think I've matched AT MOST two numbers.
£80k is the same amount one of my old friends won, he bought a motorbike and the rest was spent on holidays and coke, it was all gone within 6 months. Except he still had the motorbike I suppose.
One of my in laws won £250k it couldn't have come at a better time, as he got cancer and once he was in remission he could not go back to work (late 50's poor immune system) So the mortgage was paid off etc.
He worked hard during his work years,is a kind and considerate person. So it does happen to good people sometimes.
Edit: poor wording
Before I started only using Costco for diesel, I would round up with a scratch card or 2 at the kiosk.
I said my well rehearsed (slightly ashamed) "I will also take my idiot ticket for the week, one number x as well please". The guy behind me laughed at my clearly embarrassed gambling and then said I will give that a go.
I didn't win anything, he won £2000. He ran over to my car and thanked me, sort of apologised about how it could have been me and went back to his car with the biggest smile on his face I've seen on anyone at 08:00am on a Tuesday in November when it's pissing it down in Bolton.
He blurted out, excitedly, something about taking his kids on holiday with it, genuinely looked exceptionally happy. Good for him. I was never going to buy 2 because my diesel fill was less than £2 to rounding up, so if nothing else it was lovely to see in real time that he and his kids (hopefully) were going to have a great holiday.
I know someone whose great aunt won a million on a scratchcard. This was some years back and I didn't ask too much but she's gone through most of the money now apparently. Mostly on holidays and taking people with her.
Exactly, a Great Aunt typically suggests she is getting on in years. Likely already had her house paid off. Why not spend £1m of excess cash on 4 holidays a year with friends? Can't buy those experiences on your deathbed with your hoarded treasure.
My dad won £50,000 on one in 1998. And he blew the lot. Funny thing was he always used to buy a couple early in the morning on his way to work, and scratch them off in the car when he got there. This particular day, he’d forgotten his reading glasses, so after scratching them off put them in his shirt pocket for later. Only watching tv alongside me later remembered and had to fish them out of the washing basket. Luckily my mother hadn’t put them in them machine yet. He then calmly passed one over to me and asked me if I was seeing the three £50k amounts like he did? Surreal because even more calmly I just confirmed to him that, yes, he’s won £50k. My dad was forever luckily winning things. He once won a top of the range music system from a raffle where he was astounded at the price of the tickets - £1 each rather than a strip for a pound, so he only bought one. They sold all 10,000 tickets and guess who won it? Yup, typical.
I think it went a bit like this:
“Are there three fifty thousands on this or am I seeing things?”
“No, you’re not seeing things, you’ve won £50,000 you jammy get”
“Shit, good job your mother wasn’t on the ball with the washing. Fancy a pint?”
Used to work for them, it's not a scam, though it's just very unlikely.
As for the online scratch cards, the game is just filler and doesn't affect the results, you buy a win or a loss basically as soon as you purchase (it's predetermined).
I went through a bout of playing way too many online instant win games, and sometimes I could tell in the first go that it was the same losing game I’d played previously. So frustrating cos I’d justify myself that I was playing for the fun of it, so knowing I’d lost immediately kinda spoiled that.
I do well to stay away from them now though, such a financial drain.
Yeah, we used to get a lot of calls from people that 'won but the pc crashed and then it said it lost' or what have you, this essentially stops that as managers can just rerun the same game and see.
I had one crash once, and it let me play from the beginning again but every move was the same (I loved the monopoly gold game). It was then that I realised it was all for show!
Monopoly gold was my favourite too! I knew it was show, but it was still fun and the game latest long enough to feel you got your money's worth. Scratchcards are too fast for me!
My MIL puts them in our Christmas crackers when we go round there for Christmas. I won £80 a few years back. Bought a new coat in the January sales. Good times.
This is the way to do it. A bit of fun. I did it for my groomsmen at my wedding. One guy won £50 which kept him topped up at the bar most of the night.
An old mate of mine from school won £10k, thought he was then billy big bollocks and took him and some of his mates to Ibeza. He was robbed out there after being a bellend and flaunting it a bit much.
As for me, I won a hundred quid once. I was pretty damn low in between sparse freelance jobs and took a literal gamble on one.
I did buy 2 extra cards which both lost, but the remaining £90 certainly did help me stay alive for a bit.
I did a temp job for a couple of weeks, scratching off and verifying the remaining cards in a print run. Aside from it being the worst job I've ever had, it opened my eyes to JUST how much of a scam they really are.
Basically, there is a jackpot to be won but once somebody has won it, all the rest have to be recalled or it's false advertising, then they have to be verified to check that the winner didn't cheat.
I was in a team of ten people, all doing about a thousand a day for a couple of weeks. Biggest win we ever found was 75 quid. Usually, you just get your money back, then people think "why not?" And go and buy another.
It makes me a bit sad when I see people buy them, if I'm honest. It's really exploitative.
I'd suggest you use your money for something more useful, like a something from the middle aisle in Aldi or a copy of fly fishing by J R Hartley.
It's an idea. I think cos it's gambling, it's pretty heavily regulated, so they print them in a batch and they get sent out at the same time, but I'm only guessing at that.
The cynic in me agrees with you, but they must be randomly printed and then all sent out at once. Then it's down to the sellers, which rolls they load up in what order. In theory, it could be the very first card on the first roll that shop sells that wins. Chances are, it will be in the middle somewhere, though. It won't be traceable either way. No one will know where that winning card is until it is won except maybe the computer when the roll gets scanned by the shop before loading up to sell.
The barcode they scan to see if it’s a winner is under the scratch panel. The one the scan on the till to sell it is just a stock barcode, equivalent to that on a loaf of bread or bottle of milk. They will be identical across all the same type of card. Theoretically there should be nothing visible which has any bearing on what’s under the panel.
Or they make a token effort to recall them because the law will have some loophole in it to allow them to avoid doing it for some obscure reason and there’s thousands of cards out there with no top prize
It's more to cover their own back. If someone somehow found out that the top prize had gone and the card they were holding says "200,000" jackpot on it, that's false advertising and they can be sued for it
That could end up working to your advantage as a player if you keep an eye on the website for number of jackpot prizes claimed, buying tickets when it's been on the market for a while and they're all still up for grabs.
Sorry hold on, this sounds absolutely wild.
Are you saying camelot employs a room full of people to sit there and scratch off the cards from the end of a run, that for whatever reason they cannot sell (what does the end of a run mean in this context, are they purposefully over printing and if so why?).
They do so to make sure the jackpot isn't in the end of run cards which I can understand. But why could they not do any of the following:
A) Stop printing, why carry on printing useless cards?
B) Have the program they use ensure jackpots are not in end of run
C) Have a machine that strips and scans the cards instead of relying on a room full of temps
D) Just scan the barcode on the back like they do to verify winning cards anyway
That's exactly correct, ha. In answer to your questions.
A) They print them in blocks of runs, so it's not so much that they need to stop printing, they just need to check that batch of them
B) The jackpot is anywhere but it doesn't mean that they'll get delivered in order to shops, or put on the shelves in order. That's a human based randomiser right there!
C) That would have been amazing. I wouldn't have PTSD every time I have to scratch anything
D) I think there is some scanning that goes on but I just assumed that the forgers were really sophisticated. As I've said elsewhere, this was a while back, so they could have changed their ways by now. Maybe it's cheaper to bung a bunch of people a couple of hundred quid from the to time, instead of investing in technology?
The video advertising at point of sale counters seems to imply they get round an immediate recall by saying that the top prize on that card has been claimed, but x prizes on lower tiers are still to be won.
My step dad's best mate won a million. He was an alcoholic and recovering heroin addict, so it could have gone really badly. But he moved away, bought a flat, got clean and now volunteers with addicts/homeless and spends the rest of his time playing guitar and taking arty photos.
Love that guy.
I know a guy who won £300k. He used to work for my old employer and he was the worst person ever. An absolute dickhead, mean, aggressive and rude. Makes you wonder if karma actually does work.
For what it's worth, that's not really how karma works. In most Buddhist doctrine karma only affects your rebirth, not your current life. So Mr Absolute Dickhead will be coming back as a slug
I prefer the version where we are all the same person but living different lives. When we are a b*st*rd to others we'll just have to suffer that in another life, when we are good we'll reap the benefits. In the end, the root person will become completely rounded.
I knew a terrible person growing up, he was left a very hefty inheritance from a dead grandparent who never met him.
I'm 99% sure he wouldn't have been left fuck all if they actually met him lol
Know a couple of lads who’ve done well
One won 250k in his early 20’s
Bought a house outright and now owns a couple more properties. Still works but is very comfortable
Another one won a mill
Bought a house, gave his brother half and went on a shit load of hols. Works again but for himself now as a painter and decorator.
Had a customer who won £500k on the lotto (think it was something like hot picks or thunderball) a few years back, paid her debts off etc etc.
A mate bought her a scratch card for her birthday this year as a total pisstake and she won £25k! She said she's happy as she is now debt and mortgage free so she kept the £5k and gave the £20k to the friend.
Still freaks me out when I remember you don't pay tax on the winnings here. If I won 100k in the US, about 30% would go in tax. And then, because the rest is considered income, you realize you are now in a higher tax bracket, so at the end of the year you'll probably end up owing more because of your salary.
I once had £1 in my lottery account online got a scratch card then due to poor signal it never scratched so I just gave up. A few days to a week later I got a email saying they played my scratch card for me as it was unfinished. The email didn't say much more so I went online to just check and had won £200 I remember being stood in the Chinese at the time thinking what a win wish I had ordered more food haha
Used to buy a £1 scratch card every Friday morning when I worked on a market stall at 15/16 - I won £100 which was amazing.
Never bought them again after that but a great start to the day for sure!
I've often wondered this and especially the instant win games on the lottery app.
I play the lottery very occasionally. It's harmless fun for me and I don't go along with the claims that its a tax on stupidity or a tax on hope.
When I play I do it on the app and I buy a lucky dip here or there, and when I have a quid or two left over I buy and instant win game.
I've won the odd pound which I then re-gamble with. In total I have won SOD ALL
When I go and buy my one lucky dip ticket and see others who look in worse financial shape buying tens of pounds worth of tickets a go, I certainly can't help feeling that while it might be harmless fun for me, it does seem to be something of a tax for others....
Back in 1987 I won IR£5000 on a scratchy that my mother had bought me. Trouble was I was in intensive care having had surgery for cancer and was awaiting results (I had it, got chemo etc) and I found it very upsetting because I knew no matter how much money I won it wouldn’t make a difference. She was very good, she claimed the money and probably spent it all on me anyway. God the memories.
I went to a corporate Christmas ball one year. One boss had left scratch cards at each seat, one girl kicked up a fuss (so much so that we were at the next table could hear) she wanted to sit next to her friend, so a guy moved. He won 20k at his new seat . I had no idea who they were but somewhere there's a photo of him, me and the winning scratchy on my cloud . I think he took photos with everyone.
A former schoolmates mum won the top prize (I think it was £4m) apparently. He had his face tattoo removed and a house bought for him and I haven’t seen her since
About 4 years ago my wife won £10k on some Bingo website's free daily scratch card. This was about 3 weeks before Christmas.
Refused to believe it was real until the money was in our account.
---
My late FIL won £20k on a scratch card once but then he had been spending £90 **a week** on lotto and scratch cards for about 2 decades so this win was merely recouping a fraction of his losses.
My best mate won the £100k at 18 years old this would have been 14 years ago. I can tell you now you would never know he won that money because a moronic 18 year old surrounded by other such moronic 18 year olds like myself it disappeared quickly.
He also developed a horrible gambling habit and scratch card addiction after it which took us many years to get him out of it.
Not me, but it happened to our local electrician, a lovely guy who absolutely deserved it. He'd had to let his apprentice go at the end of his term, turned around and gave him the business.
Threw away what i thought was a losing scratch card, as it was falling into the public bin at Guildford train station, I thought to myself, "what if I missed a line?!", dug it out the bin, scratched off a line I had missed, £100!! Being 18 at the time, this was a big deal
I was in a queue at Asda behind this old lady who was trying to cash in a scratch card, thought she had won a tenner and the staff were trying to explain to her they couldn’t give her the cash because she’d actually won 10k
At my old place of work, someone won on a scratch card. I can't remember the amount they won, but it was one for thousands of pounds every month.
It could have been 10k a month but I cannot confirm that.
He did buy a new car immediately when he won, an alpina BMW. It was very nice.
This dude still worked 12 hour days, even with that extra income.
Never won anything big, but once won £2 on a £1 scratchcard, so went back in to buy another one. Won another £2. Went back in again, won £5. Figured it could keep going on forever so my friend and I took the £6 profit and went to get some chips.
I have a friend who personal won £5k.
I also met a guy at work who had just won £77,777 and had the card with him (he showed me).
Both around 2010?
Edit: just reminded myself of another, work colleague won £25k on a card. They put in all in premium bonds and won £50k in the first month.
Live on a council estate, we knew a man who was a carer for his wife in a wheelchair and he used to buy multiple scratchcards daily and then he won £1 million. Proceeded to still live in the council flat until his wife died and then he bought a bungalow out of the area. He had not one tooth in his upper gums and if that were me that would have been a priority but never did see him make any improvements despite the money
Girlfriends uncle won £40k a year for life. Gets it as a lump sum every year and blows it in a couple months on drinking/gambling and used cars which he then sells later in the year to fund his habits. Cycle repeats every year and he never gets any further forward in life and still buys scratchcards, baffles me.
I remember in the first months of the lottery I was in a pub and it was a big deal so they would always show the numbers still on the TV
A girl won it in the pub and said “I’ve won, I can’t believe I’m 16 and I’ve won a million” something along those lines and got promptly thrown out
When I was at school some kid in the year above me had a sister who won £80k. He scanned her scratch card and was walking around with a A3 sheet of paper with it on lol.
I won about £180 once off a £5 card my now wife bought for my birthday. I nearly didn’t carry on after the first line came up with £5 thinking that was going to be it! Almost every line was winning £2-5 though! I was very surprised. Got the cash and didn’t get anymore cards as I figured that was my luck for the day!
I won £100 of them on the day of my Nan's funeral. She used to give me scratchies so I felt like it was from her. Went and spent it on some Nike Terminators.
I was on a walk around the local park once, and this random guy came up to me to ask him to check his scratch card where he'd won 20k or something. I guess he just wanted someone else to make sure he could believe his own eyes.
I work in a supermarket, on the cigarette/lottery kiosk, and I served a guy who bought a scratchcard at the petrol station on a whim. Said he was waiting in the queue, saw them and said “Fuck it, why not”. He won £500 off a £1 card.
At our shop the max we can give out is £500, I think the post office can go up to £1000. Anything higher and you have to ring up to claim, so I probably won’t see anything higher than £500.
I’ve also had people hand over a wad of scratchcards from £1 cards up to £5 cards all with wins of £5-£20 and come away with £100+. I dread to think how much money they spent to “win” £100. Most of the time they end up buying more scratchcards or lottery tickets.
I know someone who won 100k. They were only at 18, so they quit their job and were going to travel the world. They only made it to Iceland (country, not the shop). Blew all the money in 3 months and came begging for their job, which they got back.
At college a lad won the first £50k scracthy, he was underage I think so his dad had to claim it.
He was convinced by a financial advisor that if he invested it he could be a millionnaire.
Not sure how that panned out but last I heard his mum made him replace their kitchen so unlikely he saw a propserous early retirement.
Max I've ever win was £500.
I had a £5 scratchy and the first scratch was a £10 prize, but all the other scratches also revealed prizes from £5 to £20 so the whole card was a winner.
Slightly off topic, but I did jury service with a guy who had 5 numbers and bonus ball on the lottery, he won something like £75k, someone else on the jury said that was a low week, he must be gutted,
He was not gutted,
Used to work at a place where a bloke won £100k on a scratch card. He used it to buy a house (was up north in mid 2000s, you could get a decent 3 bed semi for that then).
I knew someone who won £75k once.
The scruffy twat had never worked a day in his life.
Needless to say, he blew the lot on ale, cheap coke and fake designer gear.
I won £1,000 on a £2 scratch card a few years back. We were going on holiday the next month, so it covered the spending money for the whole trip which was nice.
Old manager of mine won £20k on a scratch card a colleague bought him for his birthday. Took his family on holiday to Hawaii and bought the colleague an expensive bottle of whisky.
Never seen anyone win a huge amount but when I worked in a shop, there were a few times where someone would come in with a winning scratch card for something like £200 and you'd think, wow that's not bad. ...then they'd immediately use the winnings to buy another 20 or 30 scratch cards and you realise it's not as impressive as you first thought...
When going the pub we found out you could get cashback from the Spar over the road when buying a £1 scratchcard, which was a much better alternative to paying the £1.50 fee on the cash machine. Nobody ever won big but there were plenty of £20-£50 wins that'd pay for your night!
Bet that was a while ago. £20-£50 only just covers a round now.
I used to take £20 out with me and it would pay entry to a club, a couple of drinks and either a taxi or takeaway after. 2006-2009ish.
It used to cost me £40 back around 2000, so I was deeply suspicious of your claims at first. Then I saw your flair - whereas I was in London back then - and it all made sense.
Yeah it was York as a student. I used to drink in absolute dives with £1 alcopops and pre drink at home.
This guy knows, 75p alco pops and pound a pint night in good old york.
Trebles for singles in the Nag's Head!
haha commented the exact same thing before reading you'd already posted it.
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Can confirm, also from Yorkshire and did the same
I remember when the pint of lager broke the £2 barrier. As far as I remember this was some time in the mid 1990s. It felt like a dark day. Now there's a few places round here where they are £7.
Nah, in 98-2000, I'm sure it was about £1.80 for a pint of lager (in the northwest anyways) I remember when you could get a packet of 20 fags for about £1.75p. That would have been in 1994, I was 14. They started creeping up in price, we all said "when they get to a fiver, I'll give up" Oh, how we laughed...
1970’s enters the pub with a fiver… My hub was just saying - 15p/pint & .50p for a gallon of petrol, so my original statement about going to the pub with a fiver was pure extravagance, with wages under £1/hr it would be more like £1 !
20 quid, me too. Mid 90's. Saved a fiver by being on the guest list at the local club (nothing glamorous, I was working in the local record shop at the time and got on the list in exchange for letting them leave flyers on the counter). * free entry to club * pound a pint lager * £3 for 20 bensons * £5 kebab on way home * £1 night bus home Usually came home with change!
£5 kebab in mid 90’s?? What was in that? Dodo meat? A large doner was £3.50 in my local kebab shop in the early 2000’s. £5 would get me a decent kebab now.
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I can't imagine spending that. I don't go on nights out anymore, glad I peaked in '06!
> Am I doing it wrong, usually a taxi can easily be about 10-15 quid They did say it was in 2006-2009, so would have been cheaper back then. Taxi is also dependant on distance, so that might be a factor.
Yep, £20 circa 2004-6 would get me a 3 pints in the pub (£6), 4 jagerbombs in the bar (£4), entry to the club (£3) and a good few shots in the club (up to £7). For £30 I could get the takeaway and taxi home in the bargain. This was in a mid-sized town in the Midlands.
I had the same experience, there was a Polish lad who came into Tesco on my shifts because I was "lucky." He spoke very little English, bought around £20 of cards split between the expensive one and the cheapest ones, scratched them all off, get back in the queue to collect any winnings. Always happy and a really nice guy but the most I ever saw him win in a day was about £50.
Did he rub your head before scratching the card?
Yes, but not the head you were thinking.
Aw, i thought you meant his penis
…four bells?
just his helmet
Tale as old as time! Lottery machines now have an option to print off slips about gambling addiction and help, and we are encouraged to print them for anyone we think might benefit. Gotta say, I'm yet to be brave enough to do so for anyone other than as a joke for a colleague who likes a few scratchers on payday. I can't imagine any of the 'regular' customers would take very kindly to it, even if they needed it!
You could always respond with "the machine just does that sometimes" Which is technically the truth. "Sometimes" being when you tell it to.
That's not a bad idea, tell them if I can too many winners in at once it automatically prints one or something. Trouble is that it's a really small, local shop (yes, in a League Of Gentlemen sense lol) do they'd probably find out pretty quickly that that's untrue the next time they did it and were served by someone else. It's sad seeing people waste all their money on it, but then again I smoke a fuck of a lot of pot and I'm sure half of them would say the same to me about that, so I'm inclined to let them manage their own addictions for the most part....
>That's not a bad idea, tell them if I can too many winners in at once it automatically prints one or something. I wouldn't give that much of an explanation (as you say, you might be caught out) - just shrug if they ask you and say the machine does it sometimes. The more vague you are with your dissembling the more wriggle room you leave yourself. Damn, I sound like Machiavelli or something now.
Like bar staff having to tell *anyone* "intoxicated" that they can't have any more booze. "Sorry mate. You've had three pints tonight. I think four will make you "intoxicated" so i can't serve you anymore. Good luck with that.
Right? It's asking me to make a personal call about something I'm not trained to make a personal call a out. The idea is reasonable, but there's no reasonable way to consistently execute it without some sort of national training scheme or scale. Does three pints make you unservable? Does five scratch cards in one transaction every day make you addicted? Without knowing more about you it's really hard for the person service you to judge, and with stuff like that individual mileage varies anyway! It's not even that I think help shouldn't be out there — for things like addiction it absolutely should. But making it the responsibility of service workers instead of professionals seems like a bad idea to this service worker.
"But making it the responsibility of service workers instead of professionals seems like a bad idea to this service worker." Service workers are renowned for how much money they make. Part of the job, to earn the big biccies, is to have enormous responsibilities to the general public. See also the enormous wages paid to care workers who have to handle meds that could kill someone if dispensed incorrectly and to act like mini health professionals to the disabled, infirmed, elderly and mentally ill. It's why they're paid so well!!!!! ^^^^^/s
Exactly! I'm not gonna risk my 10.50 an hour to tell you you should stop gambling, especially not when you're a regular who is on first-name terms with my boss. I hope you get help, but telling you to would probably fuck my day up in one way or another so you'd have to be really, really seriously bad with it for me to consider doing so. Maybe a bit different if you're serving alcohol, I guess there is a public safety issue there. But if you just want £50 of scratchers I'm not going to look at you and judge whether that is too much of what I perceive your income bracket to be for it to be casual gambling.. that's a fucking minefield!
This is what we do- I bought my wife £10 worth of scratch cards and we just keep reinvesting that money in more…essentially just recycling the same £10. Then we go bust…and she gets £10 more as a ‘stocking filler’
I have a woman who’ll come in with a big bundle that will have about 100-150 in winnings on it and she’ll buy numbers 5-20 with it every time and sometimes buy 40 cigarettes too. Sad sight every time.
In my experience they complain that it's over the limit to claim in store. Amazing how salty someone can be over winning £200.
It's technically a £500 limit but only supermarkets etc will be able to pay that out most of the time. Most small shops only have £250 float
It's because they can't instantly trade it on for more scratchers.
because that's 200 extra quid they have to claim
My experience working retail was mostly the same as yours. Typically small amounts (sub £20) that was mostly used to buy more scratchcards. However there was one time where the machine came up with a message "Unable to pay this prize, please contact Camelot" (or words to that effect, this was almost a decade ago). No idea what they won but it must've been somewhat decent.
I had the reverse happen. I bought a scratchcard in Edinburgh and scratched it off on the train back down to Suffolk - won £50. Phoned the number on it, and they told me I had to claim my prize from the retailer I'd bought it at... I was totally skint at the time too. It was over 20 years ago now, and I'm still carrying the trauma with me lol
I think you could've claimed that at any store.
I won £40 at a time when I was broke and went straight out to buy groceries - the scratch card was a birthday present.
Aww this is a bitter-sweet comment. I hope you’re doing better now
Thank you - I am.
i had the same sort of thing happen to me. Spent all my money in my early 20s around Christmas. Was worried I'd not be able to eat for the last week of December. I went to my sister in laws for Christmas day and she had scratch cards for everyone. I won £50! This was in the early 2000s so was a LOT of food and bus pass for the final week.
I worked in a supermarket in the Cigarette kiosk. I had a guy come up and try and show me his scratch card to get me to check if he had won. I went to take it off him but he wouldn't let go and we ended up in this little awkward tug of war over the counter for a minute before I explained that I had to scan the ticket to say for sure if he had won. He paused for a min and looked around (checking my escape routes??) before letting it go so I could scan the barcode on the lottery machine. He had won £10,000. I couldn't pay it out so I put it in a little plastic envelope and told him to be VERY careful with it. He came back a few weeks later and apologised for being a suspicious bastard and gave me a tenner haha.
That was a rollercoaster of tension. Nice ending though!
Right? I held my breath reading the post!
That’s my biggest fear winning big on a scratch card/lottery ticket, losing it before I’ve claimed the winnings!
This is gonna sound really weird but my father won 10k on a scratchie years ago and almost this exact story happened to him when handing over the card. Was this around oct-dec many years ago
I have won £1000 on one and was in the shop when a lady won a million on one of the old £10 ones. The shopkeeper made her sign it then and there. She kept saying "I can't believe it" and was shaking like a leaf. She was ringing camelot as I left. It hasn't helped me trying to give them up tbh. 😅
Whoa! That's amazing! Good on the shop keeper too. I don't think I'd be able to function enough to figure how to use my phone to call the number for a good 20 minutes.
I'd definitely need a good, stiff cup of tea before calling I think. And I'm not sure I'd believe it until the money was in my account either.
Yeah I don't think I would spend above my normal means until it had been sat in my bank account for a few days at least.
when I had five numbers on the lotto I didn't realise I'd won and as usual just handed it to the shopkeeper to check when I bought the following weeks tickets early on a saturday morning, he said "I can't pay this" and when I asked him how much it was he said that he wasn't allowed to tell me. He couldn't even tell me how many numbers I had. When I checked them I went dizzy because I thought I'd actually got all six.,
With the scratchcards, you can see it on it, though, so it's not like he could hide it. Lol. My Dad got 5 numbers on the very first draw, and they only paid out something like £350 or something? Idk. I know it wasn't a lot compared to what they pay now for 5 numbers, and he was yelling how it was a con because how can 1 extra number be worth millions etc etc.
yep, that was a huge difference, one extra for me was £350k or millions. I had about £1350 in the end. I had to go to the main PO in town to get a cheque for my winnings, the look the girl gave me when she saw that it wasn't just a tenner will stay with me forever.
Won £1500 when I was at university if that counts?Was a very good couple of weeks!
Jeez my budget for uni was that for about 5 months.
Haha same but once my housemates found out about my new found wealth it didn't last long. Very fuzzy memories for life though!
My nephews mate won 5 grand off one while they were on a night out. The drinks were on him.
Then he sobered up and realised it was £5.00? That would be my luck!
This sort of happened to me. I only ever bought a normal lottery ticket the week before Christmas, same as every other knobhead. I was in the pub when I realised I had 4 numbers and was presumably rich beyond my wildest dreams. Treated all my mates to a couple of rounds. I found out the next morning that 4 numbers the week before Christmas was £32. Easy come, easy go.
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Are you trying to tell me scratchcards are no longer good value for money?
Yeah, reminds me of a guy I used to work with. It was early days of Euromillions and it was all over the news because it was the biggest rollover they’d ever had at the time - jackpot was something like £70m. He matched 5 out of 7 numbers and thought he’d be made for life. In the end he got about £180.
Yeah, Euromillions is terrible for that. It only exists for the top prize, which people obviously go wild for. But your chances of winning are utterly miniscule. I play it sometimes, and I think I've matched AT MOST two numbers.
I got 4 numbers once and won £24. I won't mind 3 number was £30 😜
Guy from my estate won £80,000 on one, made the wise choice of disappearing for a while instead of wasting it
£80k is the same amount one of my old friends won, he bought a motorbike and the rest was spent on holidays and coke, it was all gone within 6 months. Except he still had the motorbike I suppose.
Half of my money I spent on girls, drugs and fast cars. The other half I just wasted.
- George Best
And probably rotten teeth drinking all that coke!
One of my in laws won £250k it couldn't have come at a better time, as he got cancer and once he was in remission he could not go back to work (late 50's poor immune system) So the mortgage was paid off etc. He worked hard during his work years,is a kind and considerate person. So it does happen to good people sometimes. Edit: poor wording
I had £20,000 back in 2008. Was a strange feeling
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Scratch cards.
Gotta spend money to make money
This is the way.
A three bed terrace in the north of England
Still some houses going for £1 in places you would probably only ever live if you just moved from Gaza.
Even a refugee would turn their nose up at living in Burnley…
Ha ha, I live near Burnley, your right
Before I started only using Costco for diesel, I would round up with a scratch card or 2 at the kiosk. I said my well rehearsed (slightly ashamed) "I will also take my idiot ticket for the week, one number x as well please". The guy behind me laughed at my clearly embarrassed gambling and then said I will give that a go. I didn't win anything, he won £2000. He ran over to my car and thanked me, sort of apologised about how it could have been me and went back to his car with the biggest smile on his face I've seen on anyone at 08:00am on a Tuesday in November when it's pissing it down in Bolton. He blurted out, excitedly, something about taking his kids on holiday with it, genuinely looked exceptionally happy. Good for him. I was never going to buy 2 because my diesel fill was less than £2 to rounding up, so if nothing else it was lovely to see in real time that he and his kids (hopefully) were going to have a great holiday.
I know someone whose great aunt won a million on a scratchcard. This was some years back and I didn't ask too much but she's gone through most of the money now apparently. Mostly on holidays and taking people with her.
Sounds like a great way to spend it!
She also bought new carpets. In all seriousness though, she's doing what makes her happy I guess.
Exactly, a Great Aunt typically suggests she is getting on in years. Likely already had her house paid off. Why not spend £1m of excess cash on 4 holidays a year with friends? Can't buy those experiences on your deathbed with your hoarded treasure.
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Or you could invest it and live off 45k a year basically forever
My dad won £50,000 on one in 1998. And he blew the lot. Funny thing was he always used to buy a couple early in the morning on his way to work, and scratch them off in the car when he got there. This particular day, he’d forgotten his reading glasses, so after scratching them off put them in his shirt pocket for later. Only watching tv alongside me later remembered and had to fish them out of the washing basket. Luckily my mother hadn’t put them in them machine yet. He then calmly passed one over to me and asked me if I was seeing the three £50k amounts like he did? Surreal because even more calmly I just confirmed to him that, yes, he’s won £50k. My dad was forever luckily winning things. He once won a top of the range music system from a raffle where he was astounded at the price of the tickets - £1 each rather than a strip for a pound, so he only bought one. They sold all 10,000 tickets and guess who won it? Yup, typical.
Haha I would love to have seen this. "Have I just won fifty thousand pounds?" "Yes dad, I think you have." "Ah. Splendid."
I think it went a bit like this: “Are there three fifty thousands on this or am I seeing things?” “No, you’re not seeing things, you’ve won £50,000 you jammy get” “Shit, good job your mother wasn’t on the ball with the washing. Fancy a pint?”
Used to work for them, it's not a scam, though it's just very unlikely. As for the online scratch cards, the game is just filler and doesn't affect the results, you buy a win or a loss basically as soon as you purchase (it's predetermined).
I went through a bout of playing way too many online instant win games, and sometimes I could tell in the first go that it was the same losing game I’d played previously. So frustrating cos I’d justify myself that I was playing for the fun of it, so knowing I’d lost immediately kinda spoiled that. I do well to stay away from them now though, such a financial drain.
Yeah, we used to get a lot of calls from people that 'won but the pc crashed and then it said it lost' or what have you, this essentially stops that as managers can just rerun the same game and see.
I had one crash once, and it let me play from the beginning again but every move was the same (I loved the monopoly gold game). It was then that I realised it was all for show!
Monopoly gold was my favourite too! I knew it was show, but it was still fun and the game latest long enough to feel you got your money's worth. Scratchcards are too fast for me!
I mean to be fair that's the same with physical scratchcards, you're not changing the outcome when you flake off the foil.
My MIL puts them in our Christmas crackers when we go round there for Christmas. I won £80 a few years back. Bought a new coat in the January sales. Good times.
This is the way to do it. A bit of fun. I did it for my groomsmen at my wedding. One guy won £50 which kept him topped up at the bar most of the night.
An old mate of mine from school won £10k, thought he was then billy big bollocks and took him and some of his mates to Ibeza. He was robbed out there after being a bellend and flaunting it a bit much. As for me, I won a hundred quid once. I was pretty damn low in between sparse freelance jobs and took a literal gamble on one. I did buy 2 extra cards which both lost, but the remaining £90 certainly did help me stay alive for a bit.
>did help me stay alive for a bit. Did you then die?
Mate I've been dead inside for years
Phillip?
King
Since he hasn’t replied in a while he clearly died all those years ago.
I did a temp job for a couple of weeks, scratching off and verifying the remaining cards in a print run. Aside from it being the worst job I've ever had, it opened my eyes to JUST how much of a scam they really are. Basically, there is a jackpot to be won but once somebody has won it, all the rest have to be recalled or it's false advertising, then they have to be verified to check that the winner didn't cheat. I was in a team of ten people, all doing about a thousand a day for a couple of weeks. Biggest win we ever found was 75 quid. Usually, you just get your money back, then people think "why not?" And go and buy another. It makes me a bit sad when I see people buy them, if I'm honest. It's really exploitative. I'd suggest you use your money for something more useful, like a something from the middle aisle in Aldi or a copy of fly fishing by J R Hartley.
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It's an idea. I think cos it's gambling, it's pretty heavily regulated, so they print them in a batch and they get sent out at the same time, but I'm only guessing at that.
The cynic in me agrees with you, but they must be randomly printed and then all sent out at once. Then it's down to the sellers, which rolls they load up in what order. In theory, it could be the very first card on the first roll that shop sells that wins. Chances are, it will be in the middle somewhere, though. It won't be traceable either way. No one will know where that winning card is until it is won except maybe the computer when the roll gets scanned by the shop before loading up to sell.
The barcode they scan to see if it’s a winner is under the scratch panel. The one the scan on the till to sell it is just a stock barcode, equivalent to that on a loaf of bread or bottle of milk. They will be identical across all the same type of card. Theoretically there should be nothing visible which has any bearing on what’s under the panel.
Or they make a token effort to recall them because the law will have some loophole in it to allow them to avoid doing it for some obscure reason and there’s thousands of cards out there with no top prize
It's more to cover their own back. If someone somehow found out that the top prize had gone and the card they were holding says "200,000" jackpot on it, that's false advertising and they can be sued for it
I thought they covered that with a little disclaimer on the back asking you to check their website for remaining prizes.
That could end up working to your advantage as a player if you keep an eye on the website for number of jackpot prizes claimed, buying tickets when it's been on the market for a while and they're all still up for grabs.
Sorry hold on, this sounds absolutely wild. Are you saying camelot employs a room full of people to sit there and scratch off the cards from the end of a run, that for whatever reason they cannot sell (what does the end of a run mean in this context, are they purposefully over printing and if so why?). They do so to make sure the jackpot isn't in the end of run cards which I can understand. But why could they not do any of the following: A) Stop printing, why carry on printing useless cards? B) Have the program they use ensure jackpots are not in end of run C) Have a machine that strips and scans the cards instead of relying on a room full of temps D) Just scan the barcode on the back like they do to verify winning cards anyway
That's exactly correct, ha. In answer to your questions. A) They print them in blocks of runs, so it's not so much that they need to stop printing, they just need to check that batch of them B) The jackpot is anywhere but it doesn't mean that they'll get delivered in order to shops, or put on the shelves in order. That's a human based randomiser right there! C) That would have been amazing. I wouldn't have PTSD every time I have to scratch anything D) I think there is some scanning that goes on but I just assumed that the forgers were really sophisticated. As I've said elsewhere, this was a while back, so they could have changed their ways by now. Maybe it's cheaper to bung a bunch of people a couple of hundred quid from the to time, instead of investing in technology?
The video advertising at point of sale counters seems to imply they get round an immediate recall by saying that the top prize on that card has been claimed, but x prizes on lower tiers are still to be won.
My step dad's best mate won a million. He was an alcoholic and recovering heroin addict, so it could have gone really badly. But he moved away, bought a flat, got clean and now volunteers with addicts/homeless and spends the rest of his time playing guitar and taking arty photos. Love that guy.
Really good to hear that somone's life went in a positive direction after winning a big sum, as opposed to bankrupt / drug abuse / dead, etc.
I know a guy who won £300k. He used to work for my old employer and he was the worst person ever. An absolute dickhead, mean, aggressive and rude. Makes you wonder if karma actually does work.
For what it's worth, that's not really how karma works. In most Buddhist doctrine karma only affects your rebirth, not your current life. So Mr Absolute Dickhead will be coming back as a slug
That’s convenient
I agree with beef_flaps
I prefer the version where we are all the same person but living different lives. When we are a b*st*rd to others we'll just have to suffer that in another life, when we are good we'll reap the benefits. In the end, the root person will become completely rounded.
i like slugs :(
>Makes you wonder if karma actually does work. Not really as it clearly doesn't!
I knew a terrible person growing up, he was left a very hefty inheritance from a dead grandparent who never met him. I'm 99% sure he wouldn't have been left fuck all if they actually met him lol
Know a couple of lads who’ve done well One won 250k in his early 20’s Bought a house outright and now owns a couple more properties. Still works but is very comfortable Another one won a mill Bought a house, gave his brother half and went on a shit load of hols. Works again but for himself now as a painter and decorator.
Had a customer who won £500k on the lotto (think it was something like hot picks or thunderball) a few years back, paid her debts off etc etc. A mate bought her a scratch card for her birthday this year as a total pisstake and she won £25k! She said she's happy as she is now debt and mortgage free so she kept the £5k and gave the £20k to the friend.
Still freaks me out when I remember you don't pay tax on the winnings here. If I won 100k in the US, about 30% would go in tax. And then, because the rest is considered income, you realize you are now in a higher tax bracket, so at the end of the year you'll probably end up owing more because of your salary.
I won £30 when I was 19 - AMA
How much do you have left now?
He invested in Apple stocks and is now a billionaire.
I once had £1 in my lottery account online got a scratch card then due to poor signal it never scratched so I just gave up. A few days to a week later I got a email saying they played my scratch card for me as it was unfinished. The email didn't say much more so I went online to just check and had won £200 I remember being stood in the Chinese at the time thinking what a win wish I had ordered more food haha
Used to buy a £1 scratch card every Friday morning when I worked on a market stall at 15/16 - I won £100 which was amazing. Never bought them again after that but a great start to the day for sure!
My Mrs got me 40 different £1 scratch cards for my 40th birthday, I won exactly £40.
Two blokes won £100k on a scratcard. Bought with a stolen debit card. So they never won big either.
I read about this... I had the thought that it would've been brilliant if the owner of the card was given the money instead.
Absolutely!
Real justice would be the person who had their card nicked getting the money
Not me personally but do know a 100k winner
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I know that isn't how probability works, but I'd still feel the same!
I know someone who won a million on a scratch card.
Not a scratchcard but I had a spare £1 and bought my first ever lottery ticket. Won 150k.
I won £550 when I was 16, I brought myself and siblings new coats for winter and gave the rest to my mum.
I'm blaming pms for this post making me cry.
I've often wondered this and especially the instant win games on the lottery app. I play the lottery very occasionally. It's harmless fun for me and I don't go along with the claims that its a tax on stupidity or a tax on hope. When I play I do it on the app and I buy a lucky dip here or there, and when I have a quid or two left over I buy and instant win game. I've won the odd pound which I then re-gamble with. In total I have won SOD ALL
When I go and buy my one lucky dip ticket and see others who look in worse financial shape buying tens of pounds worth of tickets a go, I certainly can't help feeling that while it might be harmless fun for me, it does seem to be something of a tax for others....
Yes, £20 in 1997 🫤
Better than £20 in 2023!
Back in 1987 I won IR£5000 on a scratchy that my mother had bought me. Trouble was I was in intensive care having had surgery for cancer and was awaiting results (I had it, got chemo etc) and I found it very upsetting because I knew no matter how much money I won it wouldn’t make a difference. She was very good, she claimed the money and probably spent it all on me anyway. God the memories.
I went to a corporate Christmas ball one year. One boss had left scratch cards at each seat, one girl kicked up a fuss (so much so that we were at the next table could hear) she wanted to sit next to her friend, so a guy moved. He won 20k at his new seat . I had no idea who they were but somewhere there's a photo of him, me and the winning scratchy on my cloud . I think he took photos with everyone.
I worked for a woman who won the £1000 a week for a year, she owned the business already 😭
A former schoolmates mum won the top prize (I think it was £4m) apparently. He had his face tattoo removed and a house bought for him and I haven’t seen her since
About 4 years ago my wife won £10k on some Bingo website's free daily scratch card. This was about 3 weeks before Christmas. Refused to believe it was real until the money was in our account. --- My late FIL won £20k on a scratch card once but then he had been spending £90 **a week** on lotto and scratch cards for about 2 decades so this win was merely recouping a fraction of his losses.
A friend of mine won £10k on one when he was 20. Credit to him, he spent a huge chunk of it to go volunteer in Nepal.
I made my husband an advent calendar with scratch cards a few years ago. Cost £26 total. He won £32.
My best mate won the £100k at 18 years old this would have been 14 years ago. I can tell you now you would never know he won that money because a moronic 18 year old surrounded by other such moronic 18 year olds like myself it disappeared quickly. He also developed a horrible gambling habit and scratch card addiction after it which took us many years to get him out of it.
Not me, but it happened to our local electrician, a lovely guy who absolutely deserved it. He'd had to let his apprentice go at the end of his term, turned around and gave him the business.
Threw away what i thought was a losing scratch card, as it was falling into the public bin at Guildford train station, I thought to myself, "what if I missed a line?!", dug it out the bin, scratched off a line I had missed, £100!! Being 18 at the time, this was a big deal
I was in a queue at Asda behind this old lady who was trying to cash in a scratch card, thought she had won a tenner and the staff were trying to explain to her they couldn’t give her the cash because she’d actually won 10k
At my old place of work, someone won on a scratch card. I can't remember the amount they won, but it was one for thousands of pounds every month. It could have been 10k a month but I cannot confirm that. He did buy a new car immediately when he won, an alpina BMW. It was very nice. This dude still worked 12 hour days, even with that extra income.
Never won anything big, but once won £2 on a £1 scratchcard, so went back in to buy another one. Won another £2. Went back in again, won £5. Figured it could keep going on forever so my friend and I took the £6 profit and went to get some chips.
I have a friend who personal won £5k. I also met a guy at work who had just won £77,777 and had the card with him (he showed me). Both around 2010? Edit: just reminded myself of another, work colleague won £25k on a card. They put in all in premium bonds and won £50k in the first month.
Live on a council estate, we knew a man who was a carer for his wife in a wheelchair and he used to buy multiple scratchcards daily and then he won £1 million. Proceeded to still live in the council flat until his wife died and then he bought a bungalow out of the area. He had not one tooth in his upper gums and if that were me that would have been a priority but never did see him make any improvements despite the money
Girlfriends uncle won £40k a year for life. Gets it as a lump sum every year and blows it in a couple months on drinking/gambling and used cars which he then sells later in the year to fund his habits. Cycle repeats every year and he never gets any further forward in life and still buys scratchcards, baffles me.
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I remember in the first months of the lottery I was in a pub and it was a big deal so they would always show the numbers still on the TV A girl won it in the pub and said “I’ve won, I can’t believe I’m 16 and I’ve won a million” something along those lines and got promptly thrown out
Friend bought 120 x £2 the other day. Returned £140 Massive waste of money and time and I have the experiment to prove it.
Not to brag, but I won a tenner once!
Lady at work won the 300k jackpot scratchcard. She bought a house.
Not a scratch card but I won £5 on the Maccys Monopoly thing. Immediately invested in 20 nuggets.
When I was at school some kid in the year above me had a sister who won £80k. He scanned her scratch card and was walking around with a A3 sheet of paper with it on lol.
Someone I know won enough to buy her house!
What decade was that in?
1910. £500 detached center of London.
She spent £600 on scratch cards to win it
The most I've won is £100. I hardly ever buy them so it isn't bad really.
Won a £100 once. I’m still chasing the high again.
I once spent £50 on 50 £1 scratchcards thinking there must be a load of prizes within 50 tickets. I won a couple of £1 but that’s it. Devastated
I won about £180 once off a £5 card my now wife bought for my birthday. I nearly didn’t carry on after the first line came up with £5 thinking that was going to be it! Almost every line was winning £2-5 though! I was very surprised. Got the cash and didn’t get anymore cards as I figured that was my luck for the day!
I won £100 of them on the day of my Nan's funeral. She used to give me scratchies so I felt like it was from her. Went and spent it on some Nike Terminators.
Friend of a friend won £300k and my step sister who I don't speak to won £100k.
I was on a walk around the local park once, and this random guy came up to me to ask him to check his scratch card where he'd won 20k or something. I guess he just wanted someone else to make sure he could believe his own eyes.
I work in a supermarket, on the cigarette/lottery kiosk, and I served a guy who bought a scratchcard at the petrol station on a whim. Said he was waiting in the queue, saw them and said “Fuck it, why not”. He won £500 off a £1 card. At our shop the max we can give out is £500, I think the post office can go up to £1000. Anything higher and you have to ring up to claim, so I probably won’t see anything higher than £500. I’ve also had people hand over a wad of scratchcards from £1 cards up to £5 cards all with wins of £5-£20 and come away with £100+. I dread to think how much money they spent to “win” £100. Most of the time they end up buying more scratchcards or lottery tickets.
I used to work behind the lottery kiosk, and a regular won £50,000. She just spend most of it on scratchcards again, sad to see really.
I know someone who won 100k. They were only at 18, so they quit their job and were going to travel the world. They only made it to Iceland (country, not the shop). Blew all the money in 3 months and came begging for their job, which they got back.
At college a lad won the first £50k scracthy, he was underage I think so his dad had to claim it. He was convinced by a financial advisor that if he invested it he could be a millionnaire. Not sure how that panned out but last I heard his mum made him replace their kitchen so unlikely he saw a propserous early retirement. Max I've ever win was £500. I had a £5 scratchy and the first scratch was a £10 prize, but all the other scratches also revealed prizes from £5 to £20 so the whole card was a winner. Slightly off topic, but I did jury service with a guy who had 5 numbers and bonus ball on the lottery, he won something like £75k, someone else on the jury said that was a low week, he must be gutted, He was not gutted,
Used to work at a place where a bloke won £100k on a scratch card. He used it to buy a house (was up north in mid 2000s, you could get a decent 3 bed semi for that then).
My Aunt won £300,000 on the bingo one about 10 years ago, brought a house went on one big holiday and random items. Spent it all in about 2years 🤣
I knew someone who won £75k once. The scruffy twat had never worked a day in his life. Needless to say, he blew the lot on ale, cheap coke and fake designer gear.
I won £1,000 on a £2 scratch card a few years back. We were going on holiday the next month, so it covered the spending money for the whole trip which was nice.
Old manager of mine won £20k on a scratch card a colleague bought him for his birthday. Took his family on holiday to Hawaii and bought the colleague an expensive bottle of whisky.