His luck began on Christmas Day. After winning £120 in the Lotto Christmas Day Draw, 20-year-old James Clarkson decided to buy five lottery tickets for the first draw of 2025 – and won £7.5m.
Clarkson, a trainee gas engineer from Carlisle, was staying over at his girlfriend’s house when he discovered he had hit the jackpot on 4 January.
He said he got up early on Sunday to check what he had won after receiving a message that he had secured a prize via the national lottery app. “I opened it straight away but couldn’t see anything to begin with. Then I scrolled down and saw I’d matched all six main Lotto numbers to hit the jackpot and that my prize amount was £7,533,329.”
The former bricklayer, who left school during the Covid-19 pandemic, could not believe his luck. “I thought I was dreaming.”
His girlfriend was also sceptical. After he woke her to show her the message, she gave it a “sleepy glance”, denied he had won, then turned over and went back to sleep, he said.
He then called his father, who told him to come home. Along with his 24-year-old brother, Thomas, he sat on the corner of his parents’ bed, waiting for the national lottery phone lines to open.
It was only at 9am, when he was able to confirm the win over the phone with an official, that he finally accepted he had won. “I think I just started laughing,” he said. “I thought, ‘this is mad!’”
He immediately began celebrating with his family, he said. “I have a big family and we are all close.”
News spread fast. “We all ended up celebrating later at my grandma’s and grandad’s with a roast beef dinner and champagne.”
Despite his win, Clarkson has no plans to quit his job and returned to work first thing on Monday morning with his father, Stephen. “I was out in the cold fixing blocked drains the day after I found out I had won. It was a bit grim but that’s reality. I’m not going to stop working, I’m too young.”
He wants to qualify as a heating engineer and “then go from there”.
He needs to have a purpose in life, he said. “Plus dad wouldn’t let me not work anyway. He says there are plenty of millionaires out there that still work and you need a reason to get up each day.”
Clarkson chose his winning numbers – 16, 19, 22, 24, 27 and 35 – at random.
So far, he has spent his winnings on an all-inclusive luxury break to Cape Verde, a Gucci bag for his girlfriend and two new designer jackets for himself. He plans to pay off his parents’ mortgage, buy a season ticket for Manchester City for him and his family and buy himself a new car, possibly an Audi.
“If you drove a cold work van all day, going from job to job, you’d understand,” he said, praising the comfort, the steering and the heated seats of the car. “I realise how jammy that sounds. Not many people my age can afford the car insurance let alone a car like that to drive.”
His parents seemed “really overwhelmed” when he told them he was planning to pay off their mortgage. “We are close and they have always been there for me. This win isn’t just for me, I want to make sure we all benefit.”
Source: theguardian.com
