All we want is Hawaii and horsebox!
£184m Lottery winners go public now they’re richer than Adele and AJ
A COUPLE put a trip to Hawaii, a horsebox for the family pony and going to watch England play rugby at the top of their shopping list after they scooped Britain’s biggest ever lottery win of £184,262,899.10.
Joe and Jess Thwaite from Gloucestershire banked the giant EuroMillions jackpot in the draw on Tuesday after buying a Lucky Dip ticket on The National Lottery app with the numbers 03, 25, 27, 28, 29 and the two Lucky Stars were 04 and 09.
Mr Thwaite, 49, is a communications sales engineer and his wife, 44, runs a hair dressing salon with her sister.
The windfall immediately catapults the couple into the list of Britain’s richest people. Their fortune puts them ahead of global stars such as Sir Tom Jones, who is said to be worth £175 million, Adele (£130 million), and Anthony Joshua (£115 million).
The couple have two primary-school age children, and Mr Thwaite has two children at university from his previous marriage.
Mrs Thwaite said, “The win gives us time to dream which we haven’t had before. We’ve had one week to think about this and we now have time to share lots of experiences and go on adventures with our family and friends.”
Her husband bought the ticket at around 4pm on the day of the draw. The next morning Mr Thwaite checked his phone and saw the email from The National Lottery saying, “Good news, you’ve won a prize.”
He said, “I looked it up and saw we’d won. I saw how much and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to sleep, I didn’t want to wake Jess up so I just laid there for what seemed like forever.
“I spent some time searching for property with no budget limit, which was a novelty!” When Mrs Thwaite woke, her husband told her, “I’ve got something to tell you.” Her initial reaction when presented with the news was disbelief, thinking he had it wrong, the National Lottery app was wrong or that it was a joke. Eventually she concluded that it wasn’t worth getting too excited about as it probably wasn’t true.
Even when they called Camelot’s National Lottery line for confirmation the pair still didn’t quite believe it and so carried on as normal doing the school run and settling down to work.
Mrs Thwaite said: “Just like many people and families across the country, the last few years have been hard.”
She added: “Our two children have always talked about going to Hawaii, I’ve no idea why but we can now make that dream come true.”
The couple have decided to share news of their win so they can get on and enjoy their new life. Mrs Thwaite said: “I don’t want to lie to family and friends, I want to enjoy it with them.”