23 members of a lottery syndicated from Derry dedicated their lives to helping others, and the Lady Luck rewarded them in a very special way. This group of charity workers just celebrated an impressive £1.000.000 victory, after one of their lottery tickets turned out to be the winning one.
Syndicate manager Rory McParland was always in charge of buying and checking their tickets, but didn’t do it this time around. He was on a holiday for three weeks with a little piece of paper worth £1.000.000 tucked inside his wallet. After returning home, he’s heard about the winning ticket being sold in their area and decided to check theirs. The lady at the counter told him they’ll have to contact the National Lottery since she wasn’t able to pay for one of their prizes on the spot.
“We all started checking out phones and the internet to see if we could find out how much we had won. All of a sudden, people were saying ‘I think we’ve won a million’ and before we knew it we were all jumping around the place, going mad and shouting and cheering. I think there were even a few cheers shed,” recalled McParland.
Each member of the syndicate will receive £43.000, which is just enough money to do something special for their family. The news is still sinking in, but they don’t intend to stop playing the lottery since it’s an amazing tradition they’ve established years ago.
“It still doesn’t seem real for any of us. We’re just a group of ordinary people and I suppose none of us ever really thought we would win such a huge amount of money – but it just goes to show you never know what’s around the corner,” concluded McParland.