Featured Image Credit: National Lottery
Topics: National Lottery, Money, Lifestyle, UK News
Joshua Nair
Topics: National Lottery, Money, Lifestyle, UK News
Winning the National Lottery is a fantasy for many of those that play, but for a select few, it became a reality.
Today marks 30 years since the first ever National Lottery draw, with 7,400 millionaires being made as a result, and 30 of them have come together to celebrate the milestone.
Two of these winners are Brits Matt Myles, from Hereford, who took home £1 million back in 2014, and Jamie Heavens, from Bournemouth, who won the same amount in 2016.
Despite winning the same amount, the two went in different directions after taking home their lavish winnings.
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Jamie found out about his winnings in a bizarre manner - he was on the way to his roofing job, and was having trouble finding a service station that would accept his fuelling card for his truck.
Finally, at the third service station he went to, a series of events would change his life forever.After getting in line at the store, he realised he had the wrong flavour drink, and he went back to change it.
Getting back in line, he saw that the man in front of him got a scratch card, to which he revealed that when he was 16, he bought a scratch card, though today the minimum age to buy one is 18, and won £100 after someone in front of him bought one, so it became a tradition.
Jamie bought one on this day in 2016, and won £1 million as a result.
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Sharing the good news with his uncle, who he worked with, and the rest of his family, they were all sceptical until he got the official call to confirm his win.
The Bournemouth-based father went on to invest his money into a business, albeit after treating himself to a Mercedes GLA and his girlfriend to a BMW of her own. Not too shabby.
Matt on the other hand, wasn't even aware that he won, and had to find his scrunched-up ticket and check the numbers at 4am one morning in 2014.
On the same day, he told his family and then went into work to quit his job after just three weeks in the role.
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He recalled: "People started to catch wind (of his win) a bit, I had a couple friends there that had obviously told people.
"But my shift manager at the time had actually been playing since the inception of the lottery, and he played every week as well - he'd never won, and it was only the third time I never played.
"Wow, yeah, he was not happy," Matt recalled.
As soon as he won, he decided to go on a holiday to Bali with his friends, but as the funds hadn't hit his account yet, he bizarrely had to take a loan from his dad to pay for the trip.
That wasn't the end of his lavish spending though, as he revealed that he 'walked into a Porsche dealership' and went 'that one', which, like anyone else, he enjoyed, and that he threw himself a £30,000 birthday bash.
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Matt also shared that he went travelling to Dubai, buying a table at one of the city's exclusive clubs, as 'it didn't matter what the cost was', as he explained: "It meant that the people that I was with at the time had the best night of their lives, and we still talk about it to this day."
When asked about what advice they would pass on, Jamie said to enjoy yourself, saying: "It might be holidays, it might be cars, it might be buying a house - you can have your fun with it, but also, have a good chunk of it ready to set yourself up."
Matt highlighted that 'communication is really important', adding: "Sometimes it feels like you're going through this experience by yourself, because you're the winner,
"If you don't communicate your feelings and apprehensions, sometimes it can consume you a little bit," he urged, explaining that speaking to family and friends 'makes life a lot easier'.
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After all of his travelling to the likes of Thailand, Brazil and Ibiza, Matt now has a car dealership business and is very much a family man, renovating his home for his children and wife.
Jamie has similarly opened his own breakdown business, with his family benefiting a lot from his win, as his son was born just nine weeks prior, and he married his wife Danielle in a £25,000 wedding.
But now, he has taken a step back from work and aims to get his football coaching badges, as he is currently working on getting his UEFA B coaching license.