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The UK’s Biggest Scratch Card Winners

Buying scratch cards during a quick trip to Tesco or to the local corner shop is common enough. We spend £5 or so hoping against hope that we will win big, but for most of us it does not come to fruition.

If we are lucky, we win maybe a couple of hundred pounds. However, there are some extremely lucky punters who have scooped up millions and millions of pounds from just scratch cards.

"Scratching cards" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by matsuyuki

Buying scratch cards during a quick trip to Tesco or to the local corner shop is common enough. We spend £5 or so hoping against hope that we will win big, but for most of us it does not come to fruition. If we are lucky, we win maybe a couple of hundred pounds. However, there are some extremely lucky punters who have scooped up millions and millions of pounds from just scratch cards.

One of the biggest scratch card winners not only in the UK but in the entire world is Amadou Gillen. Gillen won a massive £4 million back in May 2016. Then working as a pub kitchen manager, he had actually bought two scratch cards during a 12-hour shift at Wetherspoons. While the first scratch card won him £10, the second saw him become a very rich man indeed. What is quite interesting and heartening about this story is that Gillen actually completed his shift at the pub that day and finished his remaining shifts. Then, 46 years of age and father of two, only then did he break the life-changing news to his family.

Gillen was not the only big scratch card winner in the UK in 2016. Ross Hearst, 35, also scooped up £4m that year. It came at a perfect time for him as well, as he and his wife were expecting their first child in April. Hearts, who was a road worker at the time, bought the winning card from a Spar store on the Gilpinstown Road in Lurgan, Co Armagh. Intriguingly, it was the last scratch card in the shop. Talk about luck!

Susan Richards’s luck also changed due to scratch cards. Then working as a carer, she picked up as much as £3 million. After a 12-hour shift, Richards decided to go to the supermarket for a weekly shop before heading home, and she bought the scratch card with the exact change she had. Something similar happened with bartender Lewis Rider. He bought a scratch card on a whim after going to buy food for his dog Marley. One suspects that Rider took his dog to the bank to deposit his £1m cheque.

Buying a scratch card hoping to win big is a bit of fun. We all do it on a whim or just to help us cope on a bad day. The popularity of scratch cards is now reflected in the number of scratch games available online. Many online casinos, including MobileWins, offer a variety of scratch games, about which you can read more here. Such games are quite fun and, as with scratch cards, involve a little bit of luck. What is very convenient about these games is that you do not have to go outside the comfort of your living room or your bedroom.

Scratch cards have been around for decades and have withstood the test of time. Perhaps it is the thrill people get when scratching the card or maybe it is the heartening stories of Amadou Gillen and Ross Hearst that keep them going. Whatever the reason might be, it is clear that scratch cards will be in our lives for years to come.