An upholster from Rhymney in Gwent, Wales, had a little extra cash to stuff into his wallet earlier this week courtesy of the UK National Lottery. Malcolm Facey, 50, is the Maerdy Social Club lottery syndicate leader and when he checked their lines on Sunday, May 18, he discovered they'd won £104,798 in the Saturday night Lotto drawing. There are ten men in the syndicate so each member will receive £10,479.80.
"I always check results for our 11 regular lines on TV on a Sunday morning," Facey explained. "We still play 11 lines, because one syndicate member, Gordon Williams, unfortunately passed away last year, but we still play his numbers."
Eager to share news of the win, Facey picked up the phone and began ringing the other syndicate members, but when syndicate member, Alan Edwards, noticed a missed call on his mobile he feared the worst.
"I saw a missed call on my phone from Malcolm and noticed that my wife had a missed call from him as well," Edwards said. "We joked at the time that we’d probably won the lottery, but then thought that it was likely that one of the boys had passed away."
Fellow syndicate member Anthony Thomas has no such worries and summed up his feeling in one word—'gobsmacked'—and the win came as such a surprise he found himself unable to take Facey's word for it.
"I had to check the numbers three times before I could believe it," Thomas admitted.
The ten lucky winners intend to celebrate their Lotto success by flying to the US later this year and testing their luck in Las Vegas.
