Gwent is ninth luckiest in UK for lotto wins (From South Wales Argus)

Gwent is ninth luckiest in UK for lotto wins

5:20pm Tuesday 14th February 2012 in News

GWENT is the ninth luckiest place to live in the UK for lottery wins, according to the National Lottery.

With more than 66 jackpot winners and over 255 residents banking a prize of £50,000 or more, Gwent (the NP postcode area) features in the top ten luckiest postcodes based on 17 years of lottery windfalls.

For the first time, the statistics have been calculated to include all National Lottery prizes over £50,000 - not just jackpot wins.

One in 1,452 of adults in Gwent have now pocketed a prize over £50,000 since The National Lottery began in 1994 and residents have taken home over £167 million in big prizes to date.

Lottery luck in ‘Golden Gwent’ has helped Wales to become the second luckiest region in the UK, after the North East of England. Amazingly Wales has banked more than 1596 major prizes to its residents, worth over £770 million.

Romford in Essex tops the poll of luckiest postcodes in the UK, where one in 1,238 residents have taken home a major prize. The town is followed by the London Borough of Enfield and Dartford in Kent.

A National Lottery spokesman said: “It’s now clear that its residents have been quietly scooping major prizes all round and that Gwent is Golden after all!”

Gwent's biggest lottery winners were Les and Samantha Scadding from Newport who won £45.5 million in a Euromillions draw in November 2009. A syndicate of Argus staff won £4.5 million in 1997, while John Ackerman and John Stinchcombe, from Crumlin, won £11.6m in July 2006.