Saturday's £7 million UK National Lottery Lotto jackpot has been claimed by a painter and decorator from Edinburgh, Scotland.
Willie Sibbald, 48, matched all six of Saturday's Lotto numbers and the moment he discovered he'd won Willie remembered a promise he'd made several years ago. He and his friend, Rab Layden, 57, made a pact that if either one of them won the lottery they would 'see each other right'.
Rab was busy applying a coat of paint to someone's kitchen when he received the call from Willie.
"He phoned me at 1.45pm and said 'By the way I've got something to tell you, are you sitting down? I'm the guy that won the lottery'—and I about collapsed," Rab recalled.
The two friends then met up, paid a visit to their employer, and within an hour of their phone conversation they'd both taken an early retirement and were heading for their local pub to celebrate.
"We used to say 'Imagine it was us, what would you do?' But you never expect it," Willie said.
The prosperous painter fell asleep on Saturday evening; so he missed seeing the drawing on TV and didn't discover the unexpected had become a reality until later that evening when the numbers were shown in-between commercials.
I was staying with one of my relatives and I checked the ticket and shouted to my aunty 'I've won the lottery' and we checked the ticket again and again. It was just crazy."
When asked about his plans for the money, Willie said he hopes to learn to drive and purchase a Rolls Royce car.
